An exploration of the relationships between festival expenditures, motivations, and food involvement among food festival visitors

by Yaduo Hu

A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfillment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Recreation and Leisure Studies

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2010 Yaduo Hu 2010

Authors Declaration
I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public.

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Abstract
Food festivals and events are growing in popularity and warrant in-depth studies of festival visitors. Given the increasing socio-economic significance of this vibrant component of the worlds leisure industry, gaining knowledge of food festival visitors and their expenditure patterns is essential to festival researchers and destination marketers. This study examines the characteristics of food festival visitors and the determinants of their festival expenditures. Specifically, a conceptual model has been developed to delineate the correlations among festival spending patterns and the visitors event-related motivations, food-related motivations, and food involvement levels. Generally, the study was constructed around six hypotheses and five research questions, which were proposed based on a comprehensive review of literature related to events and festivals, culinary tourism, and food consumption. A questionnaire survey was designed to collect empirical data from festival attendees exiting the 9th China(Hefei) Crawfish Festival (CHCF) in Hefei city, Anhui province, China. Four aspects of food festival visitor characteristics were investigated: 1) festival expenditures in five categories (i.e., food and beverages consumed at the festival, food and beverages taken away, goods and gifts other than food and beverages, entertainment, and other expenses); 2) event-related motivations for attending, including eight individual motivators (i.e., relaxation, social, family, festival culture, excitement, escape, entertainment, and novelty); 3) food-related motivations for attending, including eight individual motivators (i.e., social, family, physical environment, food culture, celebration, sensory appeal, knowledge, and prestige); 4) food involvement traits, including four subsets (i.e., cooking, acquisition, eating, and preparing) and ten individual traits (i.e., food choice, food shopping, food processing, food presentation, cooking delight, cooking practice, taste judging, food preoccupation, and exotic food experiences). To gain a wider understanding of the food festival market, the study also investigated the visitors demographic and visit characteristics. A Tobit modeling procedure was applied to investigate the relationships between visitors festival expenditures (total and food-related) and their scores on festival motivations and food involvement scales. The results show that visitors total or food-related expenditures at the festival were not associated with their overall scores on event-related or food-related festival motivations, and visitors spending during the festival had negative correlations with their overall food involvement scale scores. However, a further investigation of sixteen individual motivators and ten food involvement traits revealed that within the event-related motivation category, Novelty and Escape were positively related to both the total and food-related expenditures, while Social and Entertainment were negatively related. Among the eight food-specific motivators, Culture and Family were negative correlates of
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both the total and the food/beverage spending and, respectively, Sensory appeal and Social were positive correlates of the total and food/beverage. In-depth investigations of the ten FIS items indicated that, in particular, the greater visitors interest in Cooking practice and Exotic food experience, the less they spent in total and on food/beverages. The only food involvement item that had a positive relation with the expenditures is Cooking delight. In terms of the relation between festival motivations and food involvement levels, the results of a series of t-tests reported that individuals who are more highly interested in food were more likely motivated to attend by food-related factors than individuals who are less interested in food, and those who reported less involvement with food showed equal interest in the food and event experiences available at the festival. With respect to visitor characteristics, empirical data gathered from the visitor survey provided a general description of the CHCF attendees age, gender, residence, and visit patterns. The findings illustrate that the visitors were typically young, and slightly more females than males attended the festival. The majority were local residents who came to the festival in a group with two or three family members or relatives/friends, and they tended to stay two to three hours at the festival. As could be expected with a food-themed festival, a great proportion of the visitors festival expenditures were related to food, especially, foods and beverages consumed at the festival. In terms of motivations for attending, generally, visitors were attracted to the festival by a synergy of food experiences available at the festival and the event itself. The most important motivations for attending were interpersonal, including both event-related and food-related Social and Family motivators. The event-related Relaxation and food-related Physical environment were also among the top three most important motivators in the two categories. With regard to food involvement, the visitors were relatively more highly involved with food than general food consumers; in particular, they were highly interested in Cooking and Taste judging. Overall, this study provides an in-depth examination of festival visitors and their consumption traits in a food festival context. When compared with those of the extant literature on culinary tourism and festival visitors, the results and discussion of the study confirm certain previous findings and, also, challenge some common assumptions. Based on the studys key findings, the hypothesized conceptual model was extensively modified to illustrate the detailed correlations among a number of variables related to food festival visitors expenditures, event-related and food-related motivations for attending, and food involvement traits. Theoretical and practical implications of the study towards future research issues are subsequently drawn from the findings. It is suggested that the food festival market should be understood in a holistic sense within both the community festival and culinary tourism contexts, and future research endeavors should be directed towards a more comprehensive conceptual model that can thoroughly explain the food festival expenditure determinants.

Acknowledgements
This dissertation would not have been possible without the contribution, guidance, and help of many individuals. First I wish to express my appreciation to members of my thesis committee for their support of this project. I sincerely thank my doctoral supervisor, Dr. Stephen Smith, for his supervision and guidance in helping me achieve this professional milestone. Even while on sabbatical, he was always there offering unconditional help whenever I needed him. To Dr. Barbara Carmichael and Dr. Ron McCarville, I am most grateful for their long-term support of my studies, and for their valuable comments and guidance in proposal development of this research; to Dr. Iain Murray and Dr. Robert ShipleyI have valued their support of this project and willingness to serve in the committee as examiners. My sincere appreciation also goes to Ms Shirley Chappel, Mr. Max Roberts, Dr. Graham Brown, Dr. Bryan Smale and Dr. Heather Mair for their help and guidance during the course of my graduate studies, and to Janne Janke, Carrie Baumken, and Mary McPherson, Graduate Student Writing Services coordinators/tutors, for their continued assistance in presenting my research.

My very special thanks go to Mr. Chao Chow, executive manager of the Hefei Crawfish Association and General Manager of the 9th China (Hefei) Crawfish Festival, for his cooperation and assistance in data collection. The Canadian Tourism Commission also deserves my appreciation, with special thanks to Mavis Zheng, General Manager (China), for providing me with generous support. I also remain thankful to all the visitors who participated in this study for their support and time commitment during the survey.

Most of all, I wish to express my deepest appreciation to my husband, Karl, for his understanding, patience, and dedicated love. His support was a great encouragement that accompanied me throughout this journey. This thesis is dedicated to him.

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Table of Contents
Authors Declaration......................................................................................................ii Abstract .........................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgements.......................................................................................................vi Table of Contents....................................................................................................... viii List of Figures ................................................................................................................x List of Tables ...............................................................................................................xii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................1 1.1 Purpose, Objectives, and Research Questions ..................................................4 1.2 Significance of the Research.............................................................................5 1.3 Definitions.........................................................................................................8 1.4 Organization of the Dissertation .....................................................................10 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW.......................................................................13 2.1 Food Festivals and Event Tourism..................................................................13 2.1.1 The Phenomenon of Festival Tourism ..................................................14 2.1.2 Food Symbolism and Festival Tourism.............................................17 2.1.3 Contemporary Food Festivals ...............................................................22 2.1.4 Food Festivals as Tourist Destinations..................................................27 2.2 Festival Expenditures......................................................................................32 2.2.1 Visitor Expenditures and Symbolic Consumption................................33 2.2.2 Spending Patterns of Food Festival Visitors .........................................36 2.2.3 Factors Affecting Festival Visitor expenditures....................................38 2.3 Festival Motivations........................................................................................42 2.3.1 Theories and Models Related to Visitor Motivations ...........................44 2.3.2 Motivation Research in Tourism Literature ..........................................47 2.3.3 Visitor Motivations in Event Tourism...................................................50 2.3.4 Major Challenges for Festival Motivation Research ............................57 2.3.5 Motivations for Attending Food Festivals and Events..........................60 2.4 Food Involvement ...........................................................................................64 2.4.1 Product Involvement and Consumer Behaviors ...................................65 2.4.2 The Impact of Food Involvement in Tourist Experiences.....................70 2.4.3 Food Involvement and Culinary Festival Visitors ................................72 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................75 3.1 Theoretical Models and Hypotheses ...............................................................75 3.2 Research Site...................................................................................................77 3.3 Research Instrument........................................................................................79 3.4 Sampling and Data Collection ........................................................................86 3.5 Data Analysis and Statistic Tools....................................................................89 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS ..............................................................................................95 4.1 Descriptive Analysis .......................................................................................96 4.1.1 Visitor Profile........................................................................................96 4.1.2 Festival Expenditures............................................................................98 4.1.3 Motivations for Attending...................................................................101
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4.1.4 Food Involvement ...............................................................................106 4.2 Tobit Regression Analysis.............................................................................109 4.2.1 Relating Total Expenditures to Motivations .......................................109 4.2.2 Relating Food-related Expenditures to Motivations ........................... 110 4.2.3 Relating Festival Expenditures to Food Involvement......................... 113 4.3 T-tests Analysis ............................................................................................. 114 4.3.1 Differentiating Food-related Motivations by Food Involvement........ 116 4.3.2 Differentiating Event-related Motivations by Food Involvement ...... 119 4.3.3 Differentiating Festival Spending by Food Involvement....................121 4.3.4 Differentiating Demographic and Visit Traits by Expenditures...123 4.4 The Modified Conceptual Model..................................................................126 CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION......................................................................................129 5.1 Responses to the Research Questions ...........................................................129 5.1.1 The Food Festival Visitors ..................................................................130 5.1.2 Motivations as Expenditures Correlates ............................................137 5.1.3 Food Involvement Traits as Expenditures Correlates ........................141 5.1.4 Expenditure, Motivation, and Food Involvement Relations...............143 5.2 Theoretical Implications ...............................................................................147 5.3 Practical Implications....................................................................................151 5.4 Limitations and Future Research ..................................................................155 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................161 6.1 Summary of the Research .............................................................................162 6.2 Concluding Remarks.....................................................................................167 Appendices.................................................................................................................171 Appendix I: Letter to Executive Manager of the Hefei Crawfish Association...173 Appendix II: Survey Questionnaire and Information Letter...............................175 Appendix III: Questions Most Frequently Asked by Visitors ............................181 Appendix IV: Location of Hefei in China ..........................................................185 Appendix V: Stint Sampling Schedule and Survey Locations ...........................187 Appendix VI: Instructions for Volunteers Conducting the Survey ....................189 Appendix VII: Script for Volunteers Conducting the Survey ............................193 Appendix VIII: Poster.........................................................................................195 Bibliography ..............................................................................................................197

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List of Figures
Figure 3-1 The Hypothesized Conceptual Model ........................................................76 Figure 4-1 Distribution of Festival Expenditures by Categories (N=607).................100 Figure 4-2 Distribution of Reponses to Event-related Motivations*.........................105 Figure 4-3 Distribution of Reponses to Food-related Motivations*..........................106 Figure 4-4 The Modified Conceptual Model .............................................................127

List of Tables
Table 3-1 Dependent Variables ....................................................................................89 Table 3-2 Independent Variables..................................................................................91 Table 4-1 Demographic and Visit Traits of the Respondents.......................................97 Table 4-2 Description of Per Capita Expenditures at the Festival .............................101 Table 4-3 Ranked Mean Scores of Individual Motivators .........................................103 Table 4-4 Ranked Mean Scores of Individual FIS Subsets and Items .......................108 Table 4-5 Results of Tobit Model Estimates .............................................................. 111 Table 4-6 High- and Low-FS Groups Event- and Food-related Motivations (1) ..... 117 Table 4-7 High- and Low-FS Groups Event- and Food-related Motivations (2) ..... 118 Table 4-8 High- and Low-FS groups Festival Expenditures ....................................121 Table 4-9 Heavy- and Light-TE Groups Spending by Categories ............................122 Table 4-10 Heavy- and Light-TE Groups Demographic and Visit Traits .................124

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
Festival and event tourism has been one of the fastest growing sections of the worlds leisure industry (Getz, 1991; Nicholson & Pearce, 2001, Li & Petrick, 2006). Culinary festivals, as a growing and vibrant sector of festival and event tourism, are emerging world wide and are seen to have significant socio-economic impacts on the destination and host communities. Although the earliest food festivals in human history were overwhelmingly related to blessing the healthy growth of crops and plentiful harvests or celebrating the important occasions of regions or communities, a great majority of contemporary culinary festivals are used as an instrument for promoting tourism and boosting regional economies. In an age when place competition is high on the destination-development agenda, culinary festivals have increasingly taken on a role as a commodity product, usually with an economic motive (Hall & Mitchell, 2008).

During the past few decades, the rapid growth in the number of newly created culinary festivals has received increasing attention by academic researchers (e.g., Cela, Knowles-Lankford, & Lankford, 2008; Crispin & Reiser, 2008; Hall & Sharples, 2008; Hashimoto & Telfer, 2008; Humphery & Humphery, 1988; Hede, 2008; Lyons, 2008; Lewis, 1997; Rusher, 2003). It has been widely agreed that successful culinary

festivals are able to make significant contributions to generating visitor revenue and raising the profile of host communities. According to Kim, Prideaux, and Chon (2010), the income from festival visitors can generate a range of economic and non-market benefits that enhance the local economy. Usually, the economic benefits include revenue generation and job creation (Crompton et al., 2001; Delpy & Li, 1998; Frey, 1994, Gamage & Higgs, 1997), and the non-market benefits include reinforcement of a positive image for local cuisine and host communities, enhancement of the reputation of local authorities hosting the festivals (Jeong, 1998), and enhancement of the communities quality of life through the addition of vibrancy (Kim & Petrick, 2005). Visitors expenditures at local culinary festivals may also help to foster culinary-related customs or to preserve culinary heritages.

For leisure and tourism researchers, therefore, gaining knowledge of festival visitors characteristics, especially, expenditure patterns, is crucial for understanding the expanding culinary festival market. Indeed, a number of scholars have given considerable attention to identifying the determinants of festival visitors expenditure patterns (Crispin & Reiser, 2008; Crompton & McKay, 1994; Crompton, Lee, & Shuster, 2001; Delpy & Li, 1998; Frey, 1994; Gamage & Higgs, 1997; Gartner & Holecek, 1983; Hall & Sharples, 2008; Jeong, 1998; Kalkstein-Silkes, Cai, & Lehto, 2008; Kim & Petrick, 2005; Kim et al., 2010a; Prentice & Andersen, 2003; Yu, 1997 ). In addition, there is a growing stream of research focusing on the motivations of festival attendees (e.g., Backman et al., 1995; Crompton & McKay, 1997; Formica &

Uysal, 1996, 1998; Lee et al., 2004; Schneider & Backman, 1996; Scott, 1996; Mohr, Backman, Gahan, & Backman, 1993; Uysal, Gahan, & Martin, 1993), as studying festival and event motivation is increasingly being seen as a key to design special offerings (Crompton & McKay, 1997, p. 426) for festival visitors and a way to enhance the local festival economy. In order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the culinary festival market, some researchers (e.g., Brown, Havitz, & Getz, 2006; Kim, Suh, & Eves, 2010) have begun to investigate the relationships between visitors personality traits, such as their food/wine involvement and culinary festival participations.

Nevertheless, as a newly emerging market segment, culinary festival visitors, especially, food festival visitors, have not been a traditionally important topic of investigation in the fields of leisure and tourism research. Most research on festival expenditures remains at the level of descriptive research on expenditure patterns, rather than suggesting hypothetical models of the expenditure determinants (Boo, Ko, & Blazey, 2007). Moreover, despite recent interest in culinary tourism among academics, little is known about the characteristics of food festival visitors. Visitor studies at culinary festivals were mostly conducted on the visitors of wine festivals (e.g., Bruwer, 2002; Dodd, Yuan, Adams, & Kolyesnikova, 2006; Houghton, 2001; Mitchell, Hall, & McIntosh, 2000; Yuan, Cai, Morrison, & Linton, 2005). Although, previous research has shown that festival expenditures may be affected by a number of factors, such as the visitors personality traits and specific festival activities

(Leones, Colby & Crandall 1998; Mak, Moncur, & Yonamine 1977; Pizam & Reichel 1979; Spotts & Mahoney 1991, Thrane, 2002), to date, to the best of our knowledge, no empirical study has been conducted to examine the relationships between food festival visitors festival expenditures and event motivations and their personal involvement with food.

1.1 Purpose, Objectives, and Research Questions

The purpose of this research is to examine the characteristics of food festival visitors and the determinants of their festival expenditures. Specifically, the study focuses on identifying the correlations between festival expenditures and motivations and food involvement among festival visitors, and how a number of factors influenced visitors spending behavior at one food festival.

To achieve the goals of this research, a questionnaire survey was designed to gather data about visitors food festival expenditures, motivations for attending a food festival, and their personal involvement with food. Operationally, this research addresses three objectives: 1) to explore the relations between festival expenditures and motivations and food involvement traits among food festival visitors; 2) to examine the nature of food festival visitors with respect to their patterns of expenditure, event-related and food-related motivations for attending, food involvement levels, and demographic and visit traits; 3) to identify factors that

influence visitors total expenditures and food-related expenditures at a food festival.

The primary research questions used to frame the study are the following:

Q1.What are food festival visitors characteristics with respect to their festival

expenditure patterns, motivations for attending, food involvement levels, and demographic and visit traits?
Q2.Do visitors motivations for attending a food festival influence their spending

patterns at the festival?

Q3.Do visitors food involvement characteristics influence their spending patterns at a

food festival?
Q4.Would individuals who are highly involved with food be more motivated by the

food-related factors for attending a food festival and spend more on food or food-related items than individuals who are less involved with food?
Q5.Are individuals who have low interest in food more motivated by event-related

factors to attend a food festival than those who have high interest in food?

1.2 Significance of the Research

This research is capable of contributing to three of the most fundamental issues of event tourism and culinary tourism research why people visit a food festival, who the festival attendees are, and what kind of factors affect the visitors expenditure

patterns at a festival. The significance of this dissertation study is twofold. First, to the best of our knowledge, this study is the first empirical study to examine the relationships among festival expenditure patterns, food-related festival motivations, event-related festival motivations, and food involvement levels among visitors attending a food festival. Second, this study employs a Tobit model, which is not a commonly used regression analysis method in event tourism research, to identify the determinants of food festival visitors expenditures. To date, very few visitor studies have examined food festival consumption in detail, and systematic studies in this area are greatly needed. Hence, by establishing links among several research areas, the study is able to contribute to the literature on leisure studies in general, and to the understanding of the nature of food festival phenomena in particular.

According to Burgan and Mules (2001), two key issues must be addressed to provide appropriate estimates of the economic benefits of events and festivals: 1) an accurate estimate of why people come to the event, as this area of questioning provides the basis for estimating benefits created as a consequence of the event; 2) an accurate estimate of how much the attendees spend or will spend during their visit, as this estimate leads to understanding of what they spent because of the event. Building on the empirical data gathered from the food festival visitors, this research correlates the subjective phenomena, visitors motivations and food involvement, with the objective phenomena which are festival expenditures; the findings of the current study cast light on both the fields of event tourism and culinary tourism studies. Gaining knowledge

about motivation factors or the goals and values that drive individuals to attend a food festival is also crucial for festival researchers and operators wishing to identify potential market segments of food festivals and events.

In addition to the festival expenditures and visitor motivations, this study empirically investigated visitors personal involvement with food to explore the influences of individuals interests in food on their motivations for attending a food festival and their subsequent expenditures during the festival. Although little food involvement research has been done in the context of festivals and events, the results of several consumer studies have shown that consumers product involvement levels have robust effects on brand loyalty, product information search processing, and purchase decisions in consumer behavior research literature (Bell & Marshall, 2003; Laurent & Kapferer, 1985; Mittal, 1989; Zaichkowsky, 1985). Furthermore, it has been reported in the wine tourism literature that wine festivals largely attract wine enthusiasts who would pay repeat visits to the event (Weiler, Truong, & Griffiths, 2004; Yan, Morrison, Cai, Dodd, & Linton, 2008). To this end, this empirical study on food festival visitors food involvement traits helps festival researchers and operators to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of this increasingly important festival visitor segment.

In the context of leisure studies, McCarville (2002) has pointed out that the marketer cannot succeed without a profound grasp of the clients wants, needs, and

preferences (p. 237). According to Thompson and Schofield (2009), the success of a festival mainly depends on the implementation of a strategic marketing plan and an understanding of the relationship between a tourism festival and its visitors; the identification of target markets is critical in this process. Formica and Uysal (1996, 1998) also argue that understanding festival visitors characteristics based on their motivations for attending festivals can be a powerful marketing tool that enables event managers to enhance and to promote event features preferred and valued by target segments. Thus, the findings of this research are able to help festival operators to better identify heavy spenders and, consequently, to better plan, expand or modify their programs and anticipate and measure trends (Chhabra, Sills, & Rea, 2002; Spring, 1988, p. 352). More importantly, the results of this research can assist scholars and professionals from a variety of disciplines affected by festivals and events to understand food festival visitor segment and to explore, describe, or explain the phenomena in the festival marketplace.

1.3 Definitions
The following definitions are operative for the purpose of this study:

Food festival: A festival or public event that centers on specific food or food-related items or behaviors. Such a festival is usually a celebration of local food or food-related pride, traditions, or specialties that the host community wishes to share,

but can also be a tourist attraction that is created or rejuvenated particularly for outside visitors in order to promote local tourism and/or culinary products.

Leisure: Time free from obligations such as work, personal maintenance, housekeeping, parenting, and other nondiscretionary commitments (Smith, 1990, p.179).

Event tourism: In order to formalize the link between events and tourism, the term event tourism was coined in the 1980s (Getz, 1997). It refers to the systematic planning, development, and marketing of festivals and special events as tourist attractions, catalysts, and image builders (Getz & Wicks, 1993; Jago, Chalip, Brown, Mules, & Ali, 2003).

Culinary tourism: The term culinary tourism used in this study follows Smiths (2007) definition: culinary tourism refers to any tourism trip during which the consumption, tasting, appreciation, or purchase of [local] food products is an important component. [] The central feature of culinary tourism is that it centers on local or regional foods/beverages (p. 100).

Visitor expenditures: Following the World Tourism Organizations (WTO, 2005) definition, the term visitor expenditure in this study refers to the consumption of or on behalf of visitors; it encompasses visitor purchases on a trip as well as all

expenditures on goods and services by all other institutional units on behalf of visitors. If cash or financial assets are transferred to the visitor to finance his/her trip, the purchases funded by these are also included in visitor expenditures.

Motivation: An internal factor that arouses, directs and integrates a persons behavior (Iso-Ahola, 1980, as cited in Crompton & Mckay, 1997, p. 425). In the context of tourism, Moscardo, Morrison, Pearce, Lang and OLeary (1996) argue that motivations are destination-specific intentions to do or otherwise to consume, and such motives provide travelers with expectations for activities. In this study, the terms motivation and motive are interchangeable.

Food involvement: According to Bell and Marshall (2003), this term refers to the level of importance of food in an individuals life; it is a somewhat stable characteristic of individuals and varies across people (Bell & Marshall, 2003).

1.4 Organization of the Dissertation

This dissertation consists on six chapters. The first chapter gives an introduction to the research as well as the significance of conducting the research. Research purposes, objectives, and primary questions used to frame this dissertation project are proposed in this chapter. Following a brief outlining of the importance of this research, key definitions that are operative for the purposes of this research are presented.

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Chapter two reviews the academic literature that relates to this research. Major theories and study findings are reviewed with respect to event tourism and food festivals, festival visitor expenditures, factors that motivate people to attend festivals and events, and food involvement. Due to the limited number of publications in this emerging and specific field, articles reviewed in this chapter are drawn primarily from the areas of event and festival, culinary tourism, and food consumption in existing literature. Some of the related works in consumer research, gastronomy studies, and psychology are also reviewed as a supplement to strengthen the studys theoretical framework.

In Chapter three, the methodology used in this research is described. A summary of the researchs conceptual model and hypotheses are presented. Following a description of the research site, research instrument and techniques used for data collection and statistical analysis are discussed. The statistical results of the research are reported in Chapter four. Based on the key findings of the current study, the hypothesized conceptual model was modified to illustrate the detailed correlations among the variables. Chapter five discusses the results from testing each research hypothesis and answers the research questions proposed in the very beginning of the dissertation. Both theoretical and practical implications of the study towards food festival development are discussed, while the research findings are specific to the 9th China(Hefei) Crawfish Festival. The discussion is also extended to reflect upon

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limitations that may have affected the research findings and, subsequently, to present recommendations for future research. In the conclusion chapter, Chapter Six, a summary of the current study is presented to draw conclusions of the major research methods used, and the key points of the research findings are identified. Suggestions for future research issues are proposed. Additionally, the survey instrument and documents used for the research implementation are provided as appendices.

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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents a review of the literature that informs this research. Due to the limited number of publications in the field of food festival visitor research, previous studies reviewed in this chapter are drawn primarily from the areas of events and festivals, culinary tourism, and food consumption. Related works in consumer behaviors, gastronomy, and psychology are also reviewed to help achieve the objectives of the current study. Overall, the literature reviewed in this chapter covers the main areas central to this study: food festivals, visitor expenditures, festival motivations (event- and food-related), and food involvement.

2.1 Food Festivals and Event Tourism

Festivals have been held for thousands of years and have been developed for a variety of reasons (Getz, 1997). In recent years, the observance of and participation in food/wine festivals has become an increasingly significant aspect of the contemporary tourist experience (Cela, Knowles-Lankford, & Lankford, 2008; Crispin & Reiser, 2008; Hall & Sharples, 2008; Hashimoto & Telfer, 2008; Humphery & Humphery, 1988; Hede, 2008; Lyons, 2008; Lewis, 1997; Rusher, 2003). While the use of these types of festivals as an instrument for tourism development has gained worldwide momentum, the academic infrastructure of culinary festival research has been
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progressively developed in the past three decades.

2.1.1 The Phenomenon of Festival Tourism

Festival is an event, a social phenomenon, encountered in virtually all human cultures (Falassi, 1987, p.1). Handelman (1998) uses the concept events to encompass the variety of social situations and power relationships that are expressed through festivity. He states that events are the out of the ordinary occasions of display, through ceremony, procession and the like, which provide focal points for consumption by an outside audience (p. 41). From a tourism perspective, Getz (1997) argues that festivals are one of the most common forms of cultural celebrations; although many are traditional and have long histories, the majority were created in recent decades. While satisfying the needs of community members in participating and sharing the important moments of the community life, such celebrations frequently involved, and focused upon, travelers, as naive and willing observers (Arnold, 2000). Falassi (1987, p.1) also argues that the colorful variety and dramatic intensity of the festivals dynamic, choreographic and aesthetic aspects, the signs of deep seated meaning, and the historical roots and the involvement of the natives often attract the attention of casual visitors. Historically, the celebrations of various festivals have always provided points of meaningful connectivity and spectacle to visitors (Picard & Robinson, 2004).

Since the late 1960s, a steady increase in the number of newly created festivals on all
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continents has been noted (Arnold, 2000; Chako & Schaffer, 1993; Getz, 1997). Among these newly emerging festivals, some with long histories are rediscovered, reinvigorated and reinvented traditional festivals and events, while many of the others are recently created as a response to a myriad of social, political, demographic and economic realities (Picard & Robinson, 2004). Although, the explanation for the recent proliferation of festivals is complex, Picard, Robinson, and Long (2004) note that one of the reasons for the rapid growth of festival tourism is that festivals provide important moments of visibility and occasions of celebrations of identity beyond the confines of their host communities. Picard and Robinson (2006) further argue that in a world where there are few societies that are not open to tourism, festivals as markers of social and cultural life, intentionally or otherwise increasingly share a set of relationships with tourists and the tourism sector (p. 3).

From the perspective of event tourism, several researchers (e.g., Getz, 1991, 1997; Janiskee, 1994, 1996; Murray, 2008; Wicks & Schultz, 1995; Goldblatt, 1997; Ryan., 1998) have systematically discussed the forces shaping event growth. Based upon an extensive review of published literature pertinent to festival tourism research, Getz (2000) indicates that no single causal factor is able to explain the recent proliferation of festivals. Hence, he proposes a number of reasons for the popularity of tourism festivals and special events. Events are often inexpensive to develop, and if properly organized will generate little negative impact. They can be viewed as being more sustainable than other

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forms of tourism development. And because they are essentially cultural in nature and lead to host guest contacts, increasingly event tourism is being looked upon as a clear alternative to mass tourism. [] Festivals and special events are being created by more and more organizations and agencies, both private and public. Events can help raise money, foster community development or the arts, provide leisure opportunities and make excellent communication tools (indeed, much of the growth of events in the past decade is attributable to sponsorship).Getz (1998, p. 411)

Felsenstein and Fleischer (2003) further conclude the most obvious reasons for the local festival as tourism promotion tools as (1) festivals and events increase the demand for local tourism (Smith & Jenner, 1998); (2) successful festivals can help recreate the image of a destination or contribute toward the exposure of a place trying to get on the tourism map (Kotler, Haider, & Rein, 1993); and (3) the strategic placement of a festival in the local tourism calendar can help extend the tourism season. For these reasons, more and more businesses, communities and destination marketing organizations are recently engaged in the systematic planning, development and marketing of festivals and events as tourist attractions, image-makers, and catalysts for other developments or as animators of built attractions (Gatz, 1998, p.411).

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2.1.2 Food Symbolism and Festival Tourism

Due to the rapid growth of the culinary tourism market in recent years, the role of food in fostering the growth of tourist demands is receiving increasing attention from both event tourism and culinary tourism communities. Based on a review of the social anthropological analyses of food and eating behaviors, Bessiere (1998) states that food has symbolic characteristics other than its hygienic and nutritional value. He conceptualizes the term food symbolism in various guises as (a) a basis of fantasy and concentrated symbolic virtues, such as wine and the dark blood in game for hunters; (b) a sign of communion, for sharing food with others is a fundamental social link at business meals, family celebrations, and daily meals etc.; (c) a class marker, for example, champagne and wine consumption can be distinctive signs allowing the various social actors to identify one another and mark their lifestyles (Bourdieu, 1979, cited in Bessiere, 1998); (d) an emblem, such as the culinary heritage of a given geographical area or community or a kind of a banner beneath which the inhabitants of a given area recognize themselves. Likewise, Humphery, Samuelson, and Humphery (1988) argue that [foods] do more than sustain the physical body. The foods consumed express a variety of messages about the individual and the culture; some have to do with the sheer availability of the foods, their seasonality, their economic nature; others make powerful statements about status, tradition, and the nature of the particular context in which the foods are being consumed. (1988, p.1)
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In a festival context, food is present at a majority of festivals and special events, and is considered an essential service (Getz, 1991). According to Humphery (1979), foods are frequently highlighted in festivals and events as they are encoded with symbolic significance and can be a vehicle for communication. Farb and Armelagos (1983) argue that the foods consumed in a festival context are both metaphor and metonym: while expressing the fundamental assumptions or world view of individuals and groups, they also make powerful statements about status, tradition, and the nature of the particular cultural context. According to Amanda (2006), food and festival embody both traditional and contemporary cultures; they are simultaneously personal and communal, global and local, dynamic and stable. Consequently, the role of food in festivals and events is not principally to satisfy physical hunger and the need for nutrition (although these are powerful and legitimate motives, even in a mentalist interpretation), but rather to celebrate (Humphrey et al., 1988).

The sociological and semiotic aspects of foods are especially significant in food festivals (Humphery, 1997). For the host communities, food festivals are a unique context where the ordinary food and the behaviors associated with them can be elevated to cultural icons. A food item may be a traditional staple in a given area (probably for reasons of availability and necessity) and, thus, be identified with the group that cultivates it, both within the group and from outside the group (Gutierrez, 1983; cite in Humphery, Samuelson, & Humphrey, 1988). While performing a

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particular vision of the community, of its values, assumptions, and prescriptive behaviors, the many behaviors relating to selecting, preparing, serving, and consuming cuisine within the festive context are able to create a symbolic language of the communitys culture and tradition. Barthes argues that food is "a system of communication, a body of images, a protocol of usages, situations, and behavior in festival context, the sociological and semiotic aspects of foods are especially significant (1988, p.50). Thus, Lewis (1997) argues that food festival has always been a central source of cohesion and cultural meaning for human communities (p. 186).

The process of preparing a food festival is rich in symbolic meaning for the host community, as such activities are able to invoke peoples pleasant associations with and feelings about food experiences as well as an emotional identification with the food image. Among earlier writers who brought together the topics of community and festivity and combined them with foodways (a reduction of an older term, "food folkways") research, Humphrey (1979) states that the appeal of food festivals is that they impart a sense of community, of belonging, of intimacy, that is often lost in modern urban society (p.198). Humphery et al. (1988) further argue that [the] participants in a festive event understand that traditional foods, events, and [the festival] contexts encode more meaning than the single food or event. Thus, the foods that appear in a particular festive environment are not mere collections of nutrients upon a table. Because communities of individuals select,

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transform, and 'perform" foodstuffs in ways (often in complex and disorderly ways) appropriate to the full set of traditional expectations that govern a particular festive context, they define and perform significant aspects of that community, its values, its sense of itself. (p.2)

For the host community, staging food festivals and performing food-related rituals are a very eloquent way to represent and enjoy abundance, fertility, and prosperity (Falassi, 1987, p.4). In addition to affirming the sociological and semiotic aspects of local cuisine, gathering together and celebrating food festivals are able to create meaning and significance for the important occasions of the communities and thus enhance the social-bonds among the community members.

Foods also play important roles in visitors destination choice (Bessiere, 1998; Boniface, 2003; Cohen & Avieli, 2004; Frochot, 2003; Hjalager & Richards, 2002; Long, 2004; McKercher, Okumus, & Okumus, 2008). According to Shipley (1999), cultural tourism is based initially on physical resources. Culinary tourism, as an important component of cultural tourism, obviously links visitor experiences with a variety of agri-food activities that showcase the local natural resources and food production. The Canadian Tourism Commissions (CTC) statement at the 2001 National Tourism and Cuisine Forum addressed the connections between foods and their physical environment: Cuisine in Canada is rooted in the history, characteristics, expertise and flavours

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specific to each region. []It is said that each region of the country has its own particular essence, soil composition, waterways or the lack of them, ocean currents, weather conditions, cold regions with their own microclimates, traditional and modern growing methods all are factors that vary from area to area. (p.1) Thus Bell and Valentine (1997) argue that food is one of the essential products that can be packaged for tourists to represent the local identity of an area.

Moreover, foods can be significant means for many tourists to penetrate another culture, as it allows an individual to experience the other on a sensory level, and not just an intellectual one (Long, 1998, p.195). In addition to meeting tourists physiological needs during travelling, food is able to satisfy tourists spiritual needs by representing one of the most pleasurable activities that they will undertake when visiting a destination (Frochot, 2003). Experiencing a regions food and beverage is essential to understanding local society, as food and beverage has always been one of the key elements of the culture of any society (Scarapato, 2002). According to Hjalager and Coriglianos (2000), tourism is a cultural act, and food is culture; combining travel with local food is a way of sharing the local culture. While experiencing local cuisine at festivals, tourists are actually tasting indigenous cultures which leads them into learning about, and experiencing a society other than their own.

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Enjoying local cuisine can be an important learning experience to tourists. The art of cooking and good eating has been seen as a body of knowledge, with its roots in all major classical civilizations (Kivela & Aitchison, 2007). According to Scarpato (2002), gastronomy is an interdisciplinary science that involves an understanding and appreciation of chemistry, literature, biology, geology, history, agronomy,

anthropology, music, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. It has been recognized that indigenous cuisine offers visitors learning experiences through a variety of culinary, agri-tourism and agri-food activities that showcase the local food production. Attending these activities can be an opportunity for visitors to discover specific culture and traditions associated with the growing, making, serving and marketing of local cuisine while learning about the talent and creativity of artisans (CTC, 2001).

2.1.3 Contemporary Food Festivals

Food festivals have been considered one of the most rapidly growing product segments in culinary tourism. According to Smith (2007), the term culinary tourism can be loosely defined as any tourism trip during which the consumption, tasting, appreciation, or purchase of local food products is an important component (p.100). In recent years, this new form of tourism is slowly but surely sweeping (Wolf, 2006, p. ix) the tourism market in many countries. It is not surprising that food festivals are seen as frequent venues for culinary tourism (Long, 2004). Although the definitive figures are hard to determine, there is widespread agreement that the number of food-related events and festivals being held around the world has grown rapidly in the
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past few decades (Griffin & Frongillo, 2003; Hall & Sharples, 2008a; Payne, 2002). Many destinations have rediscovered local culinary traditions or invented new celebration activities, in addition to expanding the scale of existing local festivals, to catch up with the pace of the culinary tourism development or rejuvenating stagnating regional economies. Creating a program of food festivals has been seen by many policy makers as an imaginative contributor to attract visitors, market the region or community, and promote the consumption of local food products (Hall & Mitchell, 2008).

Food festivals are festivals that purport to center on and revolve around food (Lewis, 1997, p.1). The possible themes of food festivals involve a broad range of food, recipes, foodways, eating habits, cooking utensils, or geographies of taste, etc. (Hashimoto, & Telfer, 2008). Although some researchers (Hall & Sharples, 2003, 2008a) have examined the etymological meanings of the term culinary, gastronomic, gourmet and cuisine with intent to showcase consumers different interest in cuisine and to identify the potential dimensions of the food/drink tourism market, in practice, these terms are usually interchangeable. A food festival may focus on a single theme, such as the Pink Tomato Festival of Arkansas in the US, and the Whitstable Oyster Festival in the UK, or multiple items like Wakefield Food, Drink and Rhubarb Festival, or food/drink-related legends, traditions, rituals, or regional culture (Geffen & Berglie, 1986; Hall & Sharples, 2008a; Sharples, 2008, ). Australias Camp Oven Festivals, which illustrate stories about the foodways and cooking utensil of early

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European settlers in Australia, are also in the culinary festivals category (Brown & Chappel, 2008). Indeed, the themes of contemporary food festivals have become a mosaic of any kind of food and food related elements (Kalkstein-Silkes, Cai, & Lehto, 2008).

Food festivals are public events that are open to both locals and outsiders. In other words, they are different from private socials, family-centered celebrations, or business-oriented social events. Confirmed by an etymological review of different language origins of the word, Falassi (1987) summarizes the meaning of festival in contemporary English as (a) a sacred or profane time of celebration, marked by special observances; (b) the annual celebration of a notable person or event, or the harvest of an important product; (c) a cultural event consisting of a series of performances of works in the fine arts, often devoted to a single artist or genre; (d) a fair; and (e) generic gaiety, conviviality, cheerfulness (p. 3). Richards (1992) argues that although some festivals share the common objective of attracting visitors with other events, such as fairs, shows, and exhibits, usually, they have different physical presence and permanence (p.16). While providing a simple generic definition that a festival is a public, themed celebration (p.8), Getz (1997, p.8) stresses that true festivals are produced explicitly for public, not private consumption.

Hall and Sharples (2008b) pointed out that modern food events have indeed referred to various hallmark, special events, fairs, festivals, expositions, or cultural, consumer

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and industry events, which are held on either a regular or an on-off basis. Indeed, in an age that marketing any product have to deal with a high level of competition from identical or similar products, many food festivals are developed to the occasions of showcasing the quality and diversity of locally produced cuisine and promoting food products (Hall & Sharples, 2008a). Consequently, a close producer-consumer relationship has been established within the food festivals because these festivals are firmly connected with local food systems (Hall & Sharples, 2008b). According to Geffen and Berglie (1986), food festivals have come to be given a particular role in many destinations to help manufacturers and to differentiate their product in some way with the intention of gaining competitive advantage, or at least calling attention to local food products that remain unknown to the rest of the country.

At an enterprise scale, culinary festivals provide additional sales outlets for food producers, particularly smaller producers, to have interaction with consumers (Hall & Sharples, 2008b). By promoting products at the festivals, producers can test samples of their new products, and thus gain marketing intelligence on their products and customers (Hall & Mitchell, 2001, 2008; Hall et al., 2003; Telfer & Wall, 1996). The opportunities of face-to-face contact may lead to the creation of positive customer relationships as well as the positive word of mouth advertising, which are both vital for direct and/or indirect sales. Hosting food festivals can also help build the food customers product awareness and brand loyalty by offering culinary related festival activities and providing sample products (Ritchie, 1981; Hall, 1992). In addition to

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supporting existing businesses, food festivals have the potential to create new markets for local industries because tourism-induced improvements in the marketing system may encourage the production of high-value, non-traditional products (Telfer & Wall, 1996).

Worldwide, policymakers increasingly emphasize revenues and income multipliers that arise directly and indirectly from the increased number of festival visitors (Kalkstein-Silkes et al., 2008). The purposes for staging these types of festivals are usually closely related to their potential to boost the economy of local communities, which is based on their revenue generating properties. Creating linkages between tourism and local cuisine has been seen as a potential contributor to the longer circulation of money within local economies as well as a possible opportunity for local tourism and food-related industry development (Kalkstein-Silkes et al., 2008). It has been recognized that staging culinary events can generate a variety of economic dividends in terms of foreign exchange earnings, showcasing local produce, and improving infrastructure development (Crispin & Reiser, 2008). It is also expected that these types of festivals can help reduce economic leakage, add value to local cultural resources, and create employment for residents (Crispin & Reiser, 2008). Consequently, contemporary food festivals have increasingly taken on a role as a commodity product, usually with an economic motive (Hall & Mitchell, 2008).

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2.1.4 Food Festivals as Tourist Destinations

Events and festivals have become one of the fastest growing types of tourism attractions in recent years (Burr, 1997; Crompton & McKay, 1997; Jago & Shaw, 1998; Thrane, 2002). Among various types of festivals, food festivals are one of the most popular. Tourism planners and festival marketers, in almost every region, it seems, can find certain food and/or drink to celebrate. If properly developed, much regional cuisine can be transferred to valuable resources of food festivals (Xie, 2004). Together with other culinary tourism attractions, such as farms and vineyards, food festivals are especially popular in rural areas, as these types of attractions encompasses the attractiveness and cultural meaning of the tourist site and the surrounding rural landscape (Carmichael, 2005, p.185). Resources of culinary festivals can also be easily found in urban areas, because the more populated the area, the greater concentration of restaurants, cafes, cooking schools, and high population areas suggest a greater incidence of celebrity chefs, and a propensity for culinary experimentation, as in fusion cooking (Wolf, 2006, p.5). Hence, food festivals are seen as an ideal type of creative destination that can be invented to add one more of the host regions assets to the competitive tourism market (Prentice & Anderson, 2003).

In their study of food and drink festivals in Japan, Hashimoto and Telfer (2008) noted that the development of food festivals is closely related to the host communities economic environment. For example, the recent popularity of regional culinary

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festivals in Japan is significantly associated with the countrys two very recent developments: the nationwide railway system that spreads regional cuisine across Japan, and the fact that Japanese people have become affluent enough to pursue the pleasure of food and drink. They conclude that the timing was right for the growth of festivals as the average Japanese became wealthy enough to travel around; interests in gourmet food was heightened; and food safety improved at the same time the health of the population faced a new challenge from a more westernized diet. Japanese food festivals today are mostly re-created events. (p. 272) By analyzing the rapid growth of food festival supply in Japan, the authors conclude that the reasons and motivations behind re-creating these food events are manifold. It is political, it is socio-cultural, and it is economic (Hashimoto & Telfer, 2008, p. 272 ).

Despite the fact that the market of tourists travelling with primary motivation of consuming special foods at food events and festivals is small (Hall & Sharples, 2003), food festivals are increasingly seen as one alternative opportunity for attracting tourists (Cela, A., Knowles-Lankfore, J., & Lankford, S., 2008). Food-related festival activities, such as eating contests, cookery shows, and food tasting, are easy way to entertain community members and visitors of all ages, due to the close links between food and the daily life of human beings. As Geffen and Berglie (1986) argued, food festivals combine the excitement of a celebration with the fresh taste of

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local foods and the honesty of homemade preparations. In an era of potato flakes and imitation bacon bits, its comforting to have the real thing while the music gets people moving, the parades bring cheers from the sidelines, and the cooking contests make local heroes of housewives. (p.4) Moreover, the omnipotent influence of globalized food and foodways and the growth of Slow Food or Organic Movements in recent years, have further contributed to the popularity of culinary festivals substantially (Hall & Sharples, 2008a).

Attending local food festivals enables tourists to taste unfamiliar food stuffs and dishes (Fischler, 1993), to find some hidden gastronomic treasure which is usually known only by locals, or to purchase foods from some small independent producers (Cela et al, 2008). Owning these types of experiences is an important means of drawing status distinction for visitors who seek out the traditional or peasant food not supplied to the mainstream tourism consumption (Fields, 2002). In Smiths (2001) words, the quest for experiential authenticity, on-site preparation and consumption motivates many travelers to incorporate culinary experiences into their travel plans (as cited in Ignatov, 2003. p. 24). Consuming local cuisine and communicating with locals also gives tourists a feeling associated with the ownership in a destination, and this feeling can generate a sort of status-related pride as they explore novelty gastronomies that they or their friends are not likely to encounter at home (Cohen, 2003). In addition to offering tourists experiences of learning about the culture of societies other than their own, eating indigenous cuisine or learning the local way of

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cooking or dining at the festivals takes on a stronger social function to build new social relations, strengthen social bonds, and provide opportunities to visitors to sample strange foods or to experience unorthodox eating patterns (Okumus, Okumus, & McKercher, 2005).

In spite of the emergence of a large number of tourist festivals, most festival activities are essentially based on a very local or, at best regional, demand (Getz, 2002). For the festival organizers, hosting community festivals is a way to improve the spiritual health of the communities, as the more a celebration draws people in sharing the core concerns and mysteries of the human condition, the more intimately festival attendees will realize their shared humanity as a universal brother and sisterhood of all people and a fundamental unity of love, justice and peaceful co-existence (Dunstan, 1994). Food festivals give a voice to locals who are brought together for displaying and sharing festival food (Kalkstein-Silkes et al., 2008) and, for the local participants, such opportunity to socialize together having fun and being entertained is valuable in creating positive social relationships (Van Zyl & Botha, 2004; Xiao & Smith, 2004) and, in particular, enhancing family bonds.

Thus, contemporary food festivals are often popular attractions for both local residents and tourists as "the central function of this type of festivals seems to be to give occasion to rejoice together (Smith, 1975, p.67). For attendees who seek hedonistic experiences, food festivals provide a pleasurable sensory travel that

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combines the curiosity for non-ordinary cuisine with the excitement for tasting fresh food in public places. Both locals and tourists are able to enjoy the intimate connection with the others, while indulging in the aroma, taste, texture, and appearance of the gastronomy presented at the festivals. In addition, festivals provide a unique context where usually strict social norms regulating consumption habits and food behaviours are relaxed (Rusher, 2003). Food events, food carnivals in particular, offer extraordinary places to visitors who seek recreational and diversionary experiences in order to escape from routine. Within this perfectly legitimate setting, festival attendees are able to let off steam by temporarily ridiculing, abandoning, or rejecting his or her socially assigned roles and identity (Finkelstein, 1989), for example, getting sloppy drunk on beer and wearing silly costumes at a parade (Lewis, 1997).

While offering tourists the experience of consuming novelty cuisine and forming new social relationships with the real locals, food festivals also cater to the natives needs of symbolizing their lifestyle by keeping up to date about trendy and fashionable cuisine, ingredients, and/or recipes (Crispin & Reiser, 2008). Food festivals, rural food festivals in particular, can be the destinations of visitors periodical pilgrimages, as rural culinary festivals often represent the friendly relationships, true and genuine values, roots, and relaxation that urban dwellers dream of (Bessiere, 1998). Such festival settings enable tourists who seek existential experiences to find the pristine or simpler forms of existence in regional and

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so-called traditional food (Bessiere, 1998), and to enjoy simple and unsophisticated peasant food prepared with care and respect to tradition (Hjalager, 2002). By entering a festival setting, both local and non-local visitors come to an exceptional frame of time and space; the food products that are consumed at the festivals or purchased to take home are transferred to the symbol of such other times and places (Falassi, 1987) that do not exist in the visitors everyday lives.

2.2 Festival Expenditures

In a visitor market, the fundamental variable in any profitability analysis is the visitor expenditure (Aguilo & Juaneda, 2000; Chhabra et al., 2002; Poon, 1993). As understanding festival participants and delivering demand-related products is important under the increasingly competitive festival market conditions, it is natural that festival researchers have recognized that visitor expenditures are the key variables in the economic-impact measurements associated with festival development. Although, the amount of expenditure research on food festival visitors is extremely small, recently, there has been a substantial growth of studies on the economic impact of other types of festivals or events, such as wine or music festivals, on their host regions (e.g., Brown, Var, & Lee, 2002; Crompton et al., 2001; Daniels, Norman, & Henry 2004; Douglas, 2006; Kasimati, 2003; Tyrrell & Johnston 2001; Getz, 1994; Long & Perdue 1990;) as well as the determinants of festival visitor expenditures (e.g., Crispin & Reiser, 2008; Crompton & McKay, 1994; Crompton, Lee, & Shuster, 2001;

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Delpy & Li, 1998; Frey, 1994; Gamage & Higgs, 1997; Gartner & Holecek, 1983; Hall & Sharples, 2008a; Jeong, 1998; Kalkstein-Silkes, Cai, & Lehto, 2008; & Petrick, 2005; Kim et al., 2010a; Prentice & Andersen, 2003; Yu, 1997 ).

2.2.1 Visitor Expenditures and Symbolic Consumption

Following the World Tourism Organizations (WTO, 2005) definition, visitor expenditure refers to the consumption of or on behalf of visitors; it encompasses visitor purchases on a trip as well as all expenditures on goods and services by all other institutional units on behalf of visitors. If cash or financial assets are transferred to the visitor to finance his/her trip, the purchases funded by these are also included in visitor expenditures (WTO, 2005). According to Frechtling (2001), this definition expands the concept from purchase to consumption (p. 27), as the acquisition of consumption goods or services for final use by the visitor regardless of whether the visitor has financed the expenditure or not. For example, a festival visitor may not pay the admission fees for entering a festival area (if his employer or friend has paid for it) but still has expenditure on it.

Within the context of tourism, some researchers (e.g., Crompton, Lee, & Shuster, 2001, p.81; Tyrrell & Johnston 2001; Frechtling, 1994; Fleming & Toepper, 1990; Getz 1994) assert that only the expenditures of visitors from outside the community are qualified visitor expenditures. It is argued that economic impact attributable to [an event] relates only to new money injected into the [study areas] economy by
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visitors from outside the community. [] Expenditures by those who reside in [the study area] represent only a recycling of money that already exists there (Crompton, Lee, & Shuster, 2001, p.81). However, according to Falassi (1987), festival areas can be seen as specific destinations that possess an exceptional frame of time and space. For people who reside outside of such time and space, once they enter the festival areas for attending the festivals, they can be seen as visitors of the festivals. Therefore, both resident and non-residents spending at the festivals are qualified for visitor-expenditure estimation.

In terms of expenditure patterns, researchers usually emphasize various important ways visitors might spend at the sites where the events occur. For example, Della Bitta, Loudon, Booth and Weeks (1978) considered visitors direct expenditures during the celebration in order to estimate the economic benefits of Tall Ships 76 Celebration on the state of Rhode Island: the visitors spending on meals, entertainment, lodging, transportations, and miscellaneous were measured. The research findings reveal that maximum expenditure was incurred on meals, and transportation and lodging came next. In Ryans (1998) study on seven different events in Palmerston North in New Zealand, direct visitor expenditures on shopping, lodging, meals, drinks and registration were identified as the important determinants of economic impact. The author argued that local residents festival expenditures can be divided into retained and displaced expenditures. Retained expenditures come from residents who consider the event to be important and will not substitute it for another activity. Displaced

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expenditures are not additional expenditures incurred by the locals; they are a substitute for spending which would have taken place elsewhere if the event were not happening (Ryan, 1998).

It is notable that generally, the patterns of consumer expenditure in tourism are different from that in daily life (Cai, Hong, & Morrison, 1995; Sheldon & Mak, 1987). For decades, researchers have acknowledged that tourism is full of symbolic consumption that goes far beyond the satisfaction of bodily needs (Brown, 1992; Hjalager, 2002; Urry, 1990). Rusher (2003) applies the concept of symbolic consumption to culinary festivals and indicates that consumption at food and wine festivals is largely symbolic as visitors consume for pleasure rather than survival, and engage in eating practices different from their normal food habits. When the celebration in a modern food/drink festival is staged specifically to display the local culture with attempts to attract or entertain outside audiences rather than to mark a significant community milestone (Rusher, 2003), this community festival has become an overt symbol of the value that the community places on tourism development. Furthermore, researchers have noted that expenditures during travel are often to be based on irrational or impulsive motivations (Kim & Littrell, 1999; Boo et al., 2007). Individuals may be more emotional than rational when purchasing products during travel (Boo et al., 2007), as tourism is often associated with escaping from routine life. In short, visitor expenditure at food festivals is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, as the real reasons for purchasing are not always straightforward

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(Kolyesnikova & Dodd, 2008, p.105).

2.2.2 Spending Patterns of Food Festival Visitors

There is little argument that food festivals have economic importance to their host communities or regions. Successful festivals are able to make significant contributions to local economies, as they attract visitors from other areas and generate revenue (Kim et al., 2010a). The Munich Oktoberfest, for example, has been developed as one of the most famous public events in the country and the largest beer festival in the world. According to the Munich Tourist Offce (2009), this sixteen-day festival draws some six million people to its festival halls every year. In 2007, the total visitor expenditures at the festival were over one billion euros. Indeed, the economic importance of recreational/tourism events to a region have long been recognized (Gartner & Holecek, 1983). It has been seen that festivals can generate a range of direct and indirect economic benefits by improving local revenue generation and job creation (Crompton et al., 2001; Delpy & Li, 1998; Frey, 1994; Gamage & Higgs, 1997; Kim et al., 2010a) and enhancing the host communities quality of life through the addition of vibrancy and vivacity (Kim & Petrick, 2005; Kim et al., 2010a).

Events and festivals play an important role in regional tourism development, as they are able to draw visitors to the area and attract them to stay longer and spend more in the host community (Yu, 1997). According to Kalkstein-Silkes et al. (2008), a
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potential strategy to strengthen or contribute to a brand of a destination would be to incorporate indigenous cuisine or food products into a regional festival and use them as an element of destination brand. Creating linkages between local cuisine and festivals, therefore, has become a popular strategy to assist in tourism or the traditional economic base of the host region. For example, the southern most state in Australia, Tasmania, has developed a number of food and wine based events such as the Taste of Tasmania and the Great Tasmanian Oyster Riot, since the 1980s. These commercial culinary events have generated a variety of economic dividends in terms of earning foreign exchange, showcasing local producers, reducing economic leakage, improving infrastructure development, and extending tourism during the slow season (Crispin & Reiser, 2008). Moreover, it has been recognized that visitor expenditures at festivals can help to preserve local heritage resources (Prentice & Andersen, 2003) and enhance the reputation of the local authorities hosting specific festivals (Jeong, 1998; Kim et al., 2010a).

Furthermore, visitor expenditures at food festivals may contribute to the local economy by supporting existing businesses or creating new markets for the local food industries. According to Telfer and Wall (1996), tourism-induced improvements in the marketing system encourage the production of high-value and non-traditional products. If developed properly, food festivals can be optimal opportunities for generating revenue from local food sales, and the increased tax revenue can improve the development of local food production. Worldwide, many destinations have claimed

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themselves as the capital of certain food items while celebrating their heritage and food production. For example, Bagongshan County proclaims to be the Toufu capital of China and, in the U.S., Sacremento and Chico are known as the almond capital of the world (Hall & Sharples, 2008a, p. 11). These regions host festivals around local foods of which they are proud to position themselves more competitively in the flooded market of destinations. The foods are simultaneously used by the regions as a way of differentiating themselves as a place to visit. The use of culinary festivals as a marketing strategy also allows the food producers to create an identifying symbol, a trademark that serves to evoke an emotional identification with food images affirming a positive response to a destination (Hall & Sharples, 2008a).

2.2.3 Factors Affecting Festival Visitor expenditures

As previously outlined, limited attention has been given to identifying the determinants of event and festival attendees. Kim et al.s (2010a) study on the Korean Traditional Drink and Rice Cake Festival in Gyeongju, Korea, is one of the exploratory studies in this area. Three different statistical models, namely, logit, OLS, and Tobit, were employed in this study to examine the impact of visitors socio-demographic and festival experience-related variables on their expenditure levels and patterns of festival visit. The hypothesized determinants of visitor expenditures include visit frequency, visit purpose, length of stay, satisfaction, education, marriage, visit over the weekday, resident, age, and income. The results of using the three approaches for data analysis reveals that Tobit regression analysis goes
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beyond the OLS procedures and logit analysis, because many existing cases of zero expenditure found in these two statistical methods generated biased and inconsistent estimations. It is also found that the set of independent variables which were significant in estimating festival visitors expenditures varied between the three models. Thus, the researchers conclude that the Tobit model is an appropriate approach to analyze festival participants expenditures, and further suggest that a singular statistical approach may be inferior to multiple ones in gaining a full understanding of the determinants of festival participants expenditures (Kim et al., 2010a, p. 10).

A number of studies of festival expenditure determinants have been undertaken in a variety of festival settings other than food festivals. Thranes (2002) study on the Kongsberg Jazz Festival, in Norway, examines the relationship between festival visitors interest in jazz music as a motivation for attending the festival and the visitors subsequent personal expenditures during the festival. Based on the results of OLS regression analysis, the author argues that people who are more interested in jazz music tend to spend more money on concerts and other music-related activities available at the festival than those who are less interested. By conducting a visitor expenditure study at the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, a popular Scottish festival held annually in North Carolina, USA, Chhabra et al. (2002) found that when in the festival, visitors who are older and have higher income spent more money in general than younger lower income visitors and, in particular, visitors in this segment

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spent more on accommodation (a one-year increase in age boosted spending by 0.8%). Moreover, those who plan their trip further in advance and travel further to get to the festival spent more at the festival. The researchers also noticed that visitor expenditures at the festival are not necessarily related to the heritage elements of the festival but depend more on the visitors enjoyment of the festival.

In a study on the factors that affect India families festival expenditures, Rao (2001) found that consumption at local festivals varies according to the residents social status. By employing an OLS regression model for data analysis, Rao (2001) reported that festival attendees who spent more on the festivals had higher social status and were more likely to have access to greater opportunities for private benefits such as lower food prices and more invitations to meals. It is also found that the size of festival visitor spending was related to their education level, the number of young children, and the number of girls of marriageable age. Boo et al.s (2007) study, however, explored the determinants of festival visitors expenditure size by identifying the psychological mechanisms of visitors behaviors. In this study, visitors who attended the second World Festival of Island Cultures in Jeju, South Korea, were queried about their past visitation experience, residency, length of stay, purpose of visit, and selected demographic characteristics. The statistical analysis revealed that the significant predictors of the expenditure size include the visitors age, length of stay, prior visitation, travel distance, and the type of companion.

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Within the tourism context, a number of researchers have investigated the relationship between visitors socio-demographic and visit traits and their expenditure patterns. Blaine, Mohammad, and Var (1996) found that there is a positive relationship between visitors income and their length of stay at rural tourism destinations. By surveying family expenditures in the UK, Davis and Mangan (1992) investigated the effect of income on visitors holiday expenditures in rural areas and reported that heritage tourists expenditures were highly elastic at low-income levels, but the elasticity varies considerably among income groups; for example, the elasticity of tourists expenditures becomes low at high-income levels, but it is still elastic. However, Lehto, Cai, OLeary and Huans (2004) research on the Taiwan outbound travelers who reported Singapore or Hong Kong as their visiting destination found that there was a reverse relationship between ones monthly income and the amount he/she spent on shopping during the trips, e.g., lower income groups appeared to spend more than the higher income groups. A possible explanation to this counterintuitive finding was that the lower income respondents might be more motivated by bargain prices and savings at the two destinations since both Singapore and Hong Kong enjoy a high reputation as shopping destinations with good value. In addition, the results of the study show that the respondents who fell into the category of 20 to 29 years old spent significantly more than other age groups. Respondents who were younger than 19 or older than 60 appeared to spend the least on shopping while on trips (Lehto et al., 2004). Nevertheless, within the context of tourism, a number of other studies (e.g., Agarwal & Yochum, 1999; Henthorne, 2000; Leones, Colby, Crandall, 1998) found

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that there were no significant differences in the spending behaviors based on tourists age.

Some visitor expenditure studies focus on the influences of prior travel experience or travel distance on visitors spending behaviors. According to Leones et al., (1998), visitors would stay longer and spend more if they have traveled greater distances. Debbage (1991) asserts that the more expensive a trip becomes, the longer will be the tourists stay and the more they want to do. Wangs (2004) study on visitor behaviours and their repeated visitation to Hong Kong reveals that first time visitors stay much shorter lengths of time and spend less money than the repeat visitors do. It is also argued that the consumption patterns of visitors depend on the size of the travel group, the travel patterns, as well as the travel purpose, such as business, leisure/sightseeing, or visiting friends and relatives (VFR). For example, it has been found that fully independent travelers spend more than package travelers (Mok & Iverson, 2000); tourists travelling for leisure or sightseeing purpose spend more money on shopping than the VFR and business travelers (Lehto et al., 2004); when the group size of a travel group expanded, the amount of money spent as a group increased (Agarwal & Yochum, 1999; Lehto et al., 2004; Long & Perdue, 1990).

2.3 Festival Motivations

According to Thrane (2002), two quite different lines of festival research have

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received most of the attention from scholars: 1) the economic impact of festivals and special events and, 2) the reasons or motives people have for visiting these festivals and events. Earlier research on festival consumers has shown that visitors motivations for attending a festival are statistically related to the level of their festival expenditures (Boo, et al., 2007; Spotts & Mahoney, 1991). Recent recognition that festivals and events are one of the fastest growing leisure businesses has prompted a number of researchers to recognize that identifying visitors motives for attending festivals and events is a prerequisite for effectively planning and marketing event programs to target markets (Crompton & McKay, 1997; Lee, Lee, & Wicks, 2004).

A great deal of research devoted to visitor motivations has emerged during the past 30 years (Bansal& Eiselt, 2004; Crompton, 1979; Dann, 1977; Fodness, 1994; Gnoth, 1997; Iso-Ahola, 1982; McCabe, 2000; Park, Reisinger, & Park, 2009). Besides examining the factors that motivate visitors to attend various festivals, research on festival motivations has been extended to exploring the relationships between the motivations and festival visitors demographic profile, satisfaction levels, and the behavioral characteristics (Li & Patrick, 2006). Some researchers (e.g., Boo, et al., 2007; Spotts & Mahoney, 1991; Thrane, 2002) have further placed their emphasis on asking how visitors motives for attending a festival affect their subsequent personal expenditures during the festival (Thrane, 2002, p.240).

Crompton and McKay (1997) proposed the reasons for investing effort into better

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understanding the motives of festival visitors: (1) studying visitors motivations is a key to designing special offers for target market segments; (2) gaining knowledge of the needs which festival visitors are seeking to satisfy is a way to monitor their satisfaction with the festival experiences; and (3) identifying and prioritizing motives is a vital ingredient in understanding visitors decision processes. In other words, identifying motivations, or the goals and values that drive visitors behaviors, leads to better planning and marketing of festivals and events, and better segmentation of the festival attendees (Li & Petrick, 2006). Although, limited attention has been given to identifying the motivational factors of food festivals, a great deal of motivation research on culinary tourism and wine festivals has established the framework for the food festival motivation research.

2.3.1 Theories and Models Related to Visitor Motivations

According to Iso-Ahola (1980), motivation is the internal factor that arouses, directs, and integrates a persons behavior (p.230). In the 20th Century, most theories and concepts relating to motivation were developed by psychologists (Park et al., 2009). This phenomenon was explained by the axiom that psychologists have always wanted to explain why people do the things they do (Wagner, 1999). Among these psychological concepts and theories, Sigmund Freuds unconscious theory and the needs hierarchy of Abraham Maslow are the most popular in the visitor motivation research.

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Freuds (1915) theory distinguishes between conscious and unconscious motives in human behavior. In his article Instincts and Their Vicissitudes (1915/1963), Freud argues that every personality is the product of conflict between three forces: the id (strong inborn drives, such as aggression and sex), the ego (repression and control of id), and the superego (moral standards). As an individual grows up, he or she represses inborn drives to meet the moral standards and expectations of society. However, more often than not, individuals are unaware of their motivations (as cited in Park et al., 2009).

Maslow (1943) classifies human needs into five categories and assumes that the natural hierarchy of the needs begins with safety, which is the most fundamental physiological need, through social and esteem needs, to the higher order needs of self-actualization. He asserts that the appearance of one need depends on the satisfaction of a more fundamental need, and people tend to satisfy the lower level needs first. There is widespread agreement that Maslows needs hierarchy is one of the most popular theories of motivation used by leisure researchers (Crompton & Mckay, 1997; Getz, 1991; Iso-Ahola, 1980).

Based on the motivation theories developed earlier, socio-psychologists have developed a number of concepts for motivation during the past few decades. Moutinho (1987) believes that motivation is a state of need, a condition that exerts a push on the individual towards certain types of action that are seen as likely to bring satisfaction (p.450). Wagner (1999) claims that motivation usually has two aspects:

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energizing behavior and directing it towards some goal. In their book The Achievement
Motive, McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, and Lowell (1953) classified the basic individual

needs into three categories: affiliation (e.g., association with others, being with others), power (e.g., the need to obtain and exercise control over others), and achievement (e.g., the need for seeking competition and success). They further suggest that those with high needs for affiliation tend to desire to be with others rather than focus on the enjoyment or accomplishing of a task; those with high needs for achievement, usually, want to develop their potential and enhance self-esteem (Park et al., 2009).

Within the context of tourism, taxonomic frameworks, such as the escape-seeking dichotomy and the notion of push-pull factors, have been built upon the psychological conceptualizations. According to Crompton and Mckay (1997), travel motivation is a dynamic process of internal psychological factors (needs and wants) that generate a state of tension or disequilibrium within individuals. Pearce (1982) further argues that without some guiding motivational framework to differentiate travel samples, it is difficult to explore and interrelate traveler characteristics in anything but a descriptive manner (1982, p.62). Apparently, using an integrative framework to examine visitor motivations is extremely important, as no single motivational framework could be expected to fully explain tourists behavior. Nevertheless, it is also recognized that the issue regarding tourism motivation is complex because individuals and their cultural conditioning differ, and what the traveler might say are motivations may be in reality reflections of deeper needs (Lundberg, 1972).

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2.3.2 Motivation Research in Tourism Literature

According to Nicholson and Pearce (2001), the study of motivation is one of the most complex areas of tourism research, as it continues to offer many challenges derived from the intangible nature of the phenomenon, issues of multiple motivation, and questions of measurement and interpretations. Most existing research on visitor motivations follows the consumer motivation research that revolves around two basic issues: (a) understanding the interrelationships between motives and certain behavior, (b) developing the list of the consumer motivation which would reflect all kinds of motives influencing behavior (Foxall, Goldsmith, & Brown, 1998, Dodd et al., 2006). To date, there is no universally agreed-upon conceptualization of tourist motivation theory (Fodness, 1994; Park et al., 2009). Discussions in tourism motivational research usually revolve around two interrelated models: the escape-seeking dichotomy (Dunn & Iso-Ahola, 1991; Iso-Ahola, 1980, 1982; Mannell & Iso-Ahola, 1987) and the push-pull forces (Crompton, 1979; Dann, 1977, 1981).

Iso-Aholas (1982) theory suggests that seeking and escaping are the basic motivational dimensions of travel behavior. Seeking is defined as the desire to obtain psychological (intrinsic) rewards through travel in a contrasting (new or old) environment, while escaping refers to the desire to leave the everyday environment behind oneself (Iso-Ahola, 1982, p.261). By comparing travel experience to religious experiences, pilgrimages, and the quests for authenticity, meaning, and values, Mannell and Iso-Ahola (1987) argue that leisure travel is

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stimulated by intrinsic motivation and escape; leisure behavior consists of self-determined behavior, increasing competence, and avoidance behavior when the person seeks escape. Thus, the psychological benefits of travel come from the interplay of two motivational forces: escaping from daily routine and seeking intrinsic personal and interpersonal rewards, and these two forces can be further divided into personal and interpersonal dimensions (Iso-Ahola, 1982).

The push and pull theory, which was proposed by Dann (1977, 1981) and Crompton (1979), are in the similar generic category to the dimensions of the escape-seeking dichotomy (Crompton & Mckay, 1997). It has been widely accepted that pull factors are the external forces representing the destination/product features (e.g., attractions, recreation facilities, services) that attract the person to a product. Push factors are the internal forces related to the needs and wants that motivate a person to choose a product or visit a destination (e.g., the desire for rest or adventure) (Cha, McCleary, & Uysal, 1995; Park et al., 2009; Shanka & Taylor, 2004; Li et al., 2008; Uysal & Jurowski, 1994). Based on the push and pull model, Crompton (1979) further identified nine motives, which include seven push factors (escape from a perceived mundane environment, exploration and evaluation of self, relaxation, prestige, regression, enhancement of kinship relationships, and facilitation of social interaction) and two pull factors (novelty and education), for pleasure vacation. However, it is notable that push and pull factors of motivation are often interrelated. For example, people visit a destination could because they are pushed by their own

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internal forces and simultaneously pulled by the external forces of the destination (Uysal & Jurowski, 1994).

Based on the push and pull theory, Dann (1981) identified seven approaches to study tourist motivation: 1) travel as a response to what is lacking yet desired; 2) declinational pull in response to motivational push; 3) motivation as fantasy; 4) motivation as classified purpose; 5) motivational typologies; 6) motivation and tourist experiences (values, meanings, authentic or inauthentic experiences, etc.); and 7) motivation as auto-definition and meaning (or how tourists define their situation or construct their meaning of the experience). Many other researchers (Crompton, 1979;
Lee, O Leary, Lee, & Morrison, 2002; Oom do Valle, Correia, & Rebelo, 2007; Sirakaya

& Woodside, 2005; Yoon & Uysal, 2005; etc.) have also noted that destination choice is influenced by different push and pull motives.

Some researchers seek to explore the concepts of extrinsic and intrinsic motives involving the push and pull factors. The extrinsic sources of motivation include the external factors that represent the destination/product features that attract the person to a destination. Intrinsic sources include body/physical, mind/neutral (e.g., cognitive, affective, conative) or transpersonal/spiritual factors that motivate the person to choose a destination (Park et al., 2009; Reisinger, 2009). Based on the recognition that novelty seeking is an important intrinsic motive that influences visitors destination choice, Lee and Crompton (1992) identified four dimensions of

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the novelty construct that are related to vacations, namely, thrill, change from routine, boredom alleviation, and surprise. Woodside and Lysonski (1989) suggest that destinations attributes are important extrinsic motives that influence visitors decision-making processes in choosing a destination. It is also noted that pleasant accommodations and climate are important external factors in selecting the destination (Oom do Valle et al., 2007; Shih, 1986; Taplin & McGinley, 2000).

2.3.3 Visitor Motivations in Event Tourism

Before the 1990s, little empirical research revealed the reasons for which people travel (Lundberg, 1990). The area of motivation was one of the least researched areas in tourism, particularly, in the narrower field of festivals and events (Crompton & Mckay, 1997). However, as the global event industry has evolved and developed rapidly since the early 1960s (Gelder & Robinson, 2009; Yeoman, Robertson, Ali-Knight, Drummond, & MeMahon-Beattie, 2004), and festivals and events are becoming a new wave of alternative tourism (Getz, 1991), there has been a growing stream of research focusing on the motivations of festival attendees (Li & Petrick, 2006).

A majority of the festival and event motivation studies have been conducted under the conceptual framework of travel motivation research (Backman et al., 1995; Getz, 1991; Li & Petrick, 2006; Nicholson & Pearce, 2001; Scott, 1996). Theories and conceptualizations, such as Maslows (1943) hierarchy, Iso-Aholas (1980, 1982)
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escape-seeking dichotomy, and the push-pull model (Crompton, 1979; Dann, 1977, 1981) have been providing important guidance for motivation measurements in festival and event research (Crompton & McKay, 1997; Kim & Chalip, 2004; Scott, 1996; Li & Petrick, 2006). For example, Getz (1991) argues that peoples social-psychological needs link their travel motivation and the benefits from festivals and events together, and the basic needs met by festivals can be classified into three categories: physical, interpersonal or social, and personal. While reviewing Getzs work, Crompton and McKay (1997) conclude that such taxonomy was heavily influenced by Maslows (1943) hierarchy (p.427).

Based on an extensive literature review on recently published festival motivation studies, Li and Petrick (2006) note that a fairly consistent and practical research framework has been established, although a universal motivation scale is yet to emerge (p.243). A number of salient dimensions of motivation have been identified through studies undertaken in a variety of festival settings (Thompson & Schofield, 2009; Uysal, Gahan, & Martin, 1993). For example, it has been found that five main motivation dimensions (i.e., escape/relaxation, excitement/thrills, event novelty, socialization and family togetherness) occurred repeatedly across various studies dealing with festival visitors motivations (Uysal et al., 1993; Mohr et al., 1993). Researchers also found that some motivation dimensions specifically appear at certain event settings or within specific populations, and since technology-driven tourism development started in 1980s, consumers have shown substantial changes in their

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motivations and travel patterns (Chhabra et al., 2002). Thus, it is suggested that marketers must appreciate the influence of nationality, age, culture, background, gender, and other classifications on tourist behavior, and construct their marketing strategies accordingly (Oppermann, 1993; Sussmann & Rashcovsky, 1997). It is also noted that some motivational factors were related to benefits apart from the festival itself, such as affiliation, escape, dream fulfillment, identity fulfillment, personal growth or the opportunities for trying new foods and wines, shopping, and participating in festival activities (Dodd et al., 2006).

The desire to experience novelty has been identified as a salient dimension of event motivations by many researchers (Backman, Backman, Uysal, & Sunshine, 1995; Crompton, 1979; Crompton & McKay, 1997; Chang, 2005; Scott, 1996; Schneider & Backman, 1996; Formica & Uysal, 1996, 1998; Lee 2000; Uysal et al., 1993, etc.). According to Lee and Crompton (1992), the novelty pull of pleasure travel is an underlying factor that motivates visitors to seek out new and different experiences based on their needs to experience thrill, adventure and surprise, and alleviate boredom. Formica and Uysal (1996) found that event novelty is the highest motivator across both the local and non-local visitor segments in a jazz music festival in Italy. Mohr et al. (1993) argue that there are significant differences that exist between first time and repeat visitors with respect to the motivation dimensions of event novelty based on their investigation on visitor motivations for attending a hot air balloon festival. Similar factors, such as curiosity and uniqueness, have also been identified

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by a number of festival motivation studies. For example, Nicholson and Pearce (2000, 2001) present the novelty/uniqueness factor by comparing visitor motivations at four New Zealand events. Scott (1996) reports the curiosity factor by using twenty-five motive statements with a 5-point Likert-type Scale to measure visitors motivation at three US festivals. In his early study on visitor motivations, Crompton (1979) stresses that curiosity can be seen as a synonym for novelty in motivation studies.

Socialization is one of the most consistent and recurring motivational factors for attendance across previous research on festival visitor motivations (Gelder & Robinson, 2009). Based on an extensive literature review of recent festival motivation research, Petrick and Li (2006) concluded that whatever the theme of the festival is, socialization is always in the top five factors that motivate people to attend the festival, while other motivational factors varied based on the type of the event. For example, Nicholson and Pearces (2001) study on four festivals in New Zealand reportes that socialization is the key factor that motivated the visitors to attend each of the festivals. According to Crompton and McKay (1997), the dimension of socialization is particularly important in festival motivations because trip motivation can be peoplerather than place-oriented. Thompson and Schofield (2009) argue that given that people have a desire to interact with others beyond their normal circle of acquaintances and to extend social contacts, and the nature of festivals is to provide places to a large number of people who have a common interest in gathering together.

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It is not surprising that socialization has repeatedly shown to be a salient factor in event motivation. However, there is also statistical evidence that within the same festival settings, local visitors were more motivated by the socialization factor than were non-local visitors (Formica & Uysal, 1996); comparing with other event goers, younger event-goers were more likely motivated by known group socialization while attending music festivals (Faulkner, Fredline, Larson, & Tomlijenovic, 1999). Furthermore, some studies (Crompton & McKay, 1997; Lee, 2000) present a distinction between the known-group socialization and the external interaction, and some studies adopt meeting or observing new people (Ralston & Crompton, 1988) or external interaction (Nicholson & Pearce, 2000, 2001) as interchangeable terms while measuring motivation factors related to the socialization dimension.

The escape or recover equilibrium factor is also frequently discussed in festival motivation studies. Since Ralston and Crompton (1988), who arguably conducted the first study dealing specifically with event participants motivations, found that escape from personal and social pressures is one of the main factors explaining event-goers motivations for attending the Dickens on the Strand in 1987 in Galveston, USA. A number of later studies (Backman et al., 1995; Crompton & McKay, 1997; Dwar et al., 2001; Lee, 2000; Lee et al., 2004; Mohr et al., 1993; Nicholson & Pearce, 2000, 2001; Scott 1996; Schneider & Backman, 1996; Uysal et al., 1993; etc.) have identified similar factors from their event-goers. Scotts (1996) study on three events in Northeast Ohio has found statistically significant differences on the escape factor

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among different festival populations. Backman et al., (1995) have also identified significant differences between different age groups on their relaxation factor. Lee (2000), however, reports the differences on scores for the escape factor between Eastern (Korean and Japanese) and Western (American and European) national groupings. In addition, Backman et al.(1995) used the term relaxation to label the motivational factors that are similar to the escape factor. Crompton and McKay (1997) describe the factor as rest and getting away from pressures and responsibilities and explain that a desire for rest or relaxation is to refresh oneself mentally and physically from normal day-to-day stresses (p.430).

The importance of being together as a family has emerged from the majority of festival motivation studies. These types of factors are normally labeled as family togetherness (Thompson & Schofield, 2009) or family. Cromptons (1979) conceptual framework of travel motivation have identified enhancing kinship and relations/family togetherness as one of the seven socio-psychological motivational domains, and illustrated that this domain of motivation is based on peoples desire to enhance family relationships. Similar family related factors have been identified by many later studies. For example, Nicholson and Pearces (2001) case study on four festivals in New Zealand reports that reasons related to family are the main motives the event-goers have. While conducting research on the Naadam Festival in 2005 in Ulaanbaatar, Schofield and Thompson (2007) stated that the motivation of socializing with friends and family had emerged as a salient dimension from all the previous

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motivation studies. Nevertheless, some festival motivation studies, such as Crompton and McKays (1997) study on the Fiesta San Antonio in Texas and Changs (2005) study conducted at Wu-tai annual aboriginal festival in Taiwan, have not found the significance of the family-related factors in festival motivations. Uysal et al.(1993), and later Backman et al. (1995) noted the family togetherness factor, but they eventually concluded that the impact of this factor on visitors motivation for attending festivals differs according to the visitors matrimonial status.

In addition, some recent studies have identified exploring new cultures factor as one of the most important factors explaining visitors festival motivations (Thompson & Schofield, 2009). Crompton and McKay (1997) even use the words cultural exploration to describe the central theme of the 10-day Fiesta festival in San Antonio, Texas, USA, as the cultural exploration factor accounts for over half the total explained variable in their study on the festival and, thus, emphasize its dominant role in the festival. Schofield and Thompson (2007) further argue that the importance of culture in motivation to visit an event is clearly linked to the significance of the culture elements being celebrated by any individual event or festival. Moreover, the culture-related motivation has been identified as one of the main motivation dimensions in the Spoleto Festival in Italy, the World Culture Expo in South Korea, as well as the Wu-tai annual aboriginal festival in Taiwan, China (Chang, 2005; Formica & Uysal, 1996, 1998; Lee, 2000; Lee et al., 2004). However, it is notable that some marginal differences in relation to the cultural exploration motivation have been found

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among visitors attending the same festivals. For example, Gelder and Robinsons (2009) study on the Glastonbury and V Festival, a music festival, in the UK found that women value cultural exploration slightly higher than men, and attendees of Glastonbury festival rank it higher than those of V Festival.

2.3.4 Major Challenges for Festival Motivation Research

Generalizability issues have long been a topic in visitor motivation research. Essentially, these issues are discussed around the question do people go to different events with different motivations?. To answer this question, researchers have to investigate multiple events, instead of a single one (Li & Patrick, 2006). Generally, previous studies exhibit similar factor solutions across different events in a range of geographical and cultural settings, suggesting that there is a set of key factors that explain the motivation behind attendance at festivals and events (Thompson & Schofield, 2009). However, some conflicting findings have also been reported (Crompton & McKay, 1997; Nicholson & Pearce, 2000, 2001; Scott, 1996).

Crompton and McKays (1997) study at 16 selected events of the Fiesta festival develops a five-category taxonomy and classifies every selected event into one of these categories (parades, balls, food events, musical performances, and shows). The escape-seeking dichotomy and push-pull forces conceptual frameworks were followed to identify motives which stimulated visitors to go to different events at the festival. By assessing the extent to which the perceived relevance of motives changed
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across different types of events, the authors found that the external interaction or socialization motivational factors were equally strong across all five types of events, and cultural exploration was equally relevant across four of the five event types. Thus, the authors conclude that although some differences emerged, the prevailing impression from an overall review of the variances is the pervasive similarities of motives across different events (p, 436). Such research results are consistent with Iso-Aholas (1980) argument that different types of events are likely to be able to satisfy the same need albeit to a different degree.

However, Nicholson and Pearce (2001) argue that Crompton and McKays (1997) study is problematic because the extent to which this is a study of multiple events or of different activities occurring within a single large event is debatable (p.449). Based on their comparative analysis of visitor motivations for attending four different events in South Island, New Zealand, Nicholson and Pearce (2000, 2001) reported that event-goers do not appear to constitute a single homogeneous market; rather, different events appear to attract different audiences (2000, p. 236). They further conclude that event-specific factors are especially important, as people go to different events for different reasons and that the majority are going to a particular event for what it offers rather than to an event in general (2001, p. 458). Moreover, Scott (1996) conducted a study on the visitors of three different festivals in Northeast Ohio in order to determine whether there were differences among visitors motivations to attend different festivals. He found that respondents ascribed disparate

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importance to all the motivation items listed on the questionnaire, varying by festivals. Therefore, he concluded that motivations sought at one festival are likely to be different than motivations sought at another festival, and festival type was a far better predictor of peoples motivations than past experience (p. 128).

Another group of festival motivation researchers examined the motivational differences that exist among different geographic market segments as well as demographic groups. By comparing the motivation patterns between resident and non-resident visitors at the Umbria Jazz Festival, Italy, Formica and Uysal (1996) argue that residents are more likely to be motivated by the factor socialization, and non-residents were more likely to be driven by the factor entertainment. In their later study on event-goers motivations for attending the Spoleto Festival in Italy, Formica and Uysal (1998) divided the festival attendees into an enthusiasts group and a moderates group based on their behaviors, and compared the motivation patterns between the two groups. They found that the enthusiasts were typically older, wealthier, and married attendees, while the moderates were usually single, younger, and had lower incomes. Studies conducted by Lee (2000) and Lee et al. (2004), on the Kyongju World Cultural Expo, South Korea, found different motivation patterns between the Eastern (Korean and Japanese) and Western (American and European) national groupings, and between the domestic and foreign visitor segments. Backman et al. (1995) used data of the 1985 Pleasure Travel Market Survey to examine festival visitors differences in motivational factors. They found that excitement, external,

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family, and relaxation factors are statistically different according to the age, marital status, and income. Thus, significant differences in motivational factors according to the festival visitors demographic variables were reported. Interestingly, some conflicting research findings were also reported. For example, Uysal et al.s (1993) research on a Corn Festival in South Carolina reported that no statistically significant differences had been found when the motivational factors were analyzed relating to the demographic variables of different market segments.

2.3.5 Motivations for Attending Food Festivals and Events

Very few studies have been conducted on the visitors motivations for attending food festivals and events. Uysal et al. (1993) arguably carried out the first study dealing specifically with food festival participants motivations. The study has been published in the first issue of Festival Management & Event Tourism and considered as a starting point for understanding the motivations people have for attending festivals (Scott, 1996, p.122). Based on the data collected from the visitors of the Corn Festival of 1991 in South Carolina, USA, the researchers factor analyzed twenty-four motivation items with a 5-point Likert-type scale. Five important motivation dimensions were identified as escape, excitement/thrills, event novelty, socialization and family togetherness. The research findings have shown that older festival attendees placed more importance on the event novelty than other age groups. However, statistically significant differences have not been found when the authors compared these motivational factors by demographic variables.
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Crompton and McKay (1997) studied 16 events at a 10-day festival and compared the visitors motivation factors associated with different events. They found that those who attend food events were significantly less interested in cultural exploration and significantly more likely to be motivated by novelty/regression than those who attend other events. It is also found that respondents who attended food events were strongly motivated by the desires to recover equilibrium, known-group socialization, and gregariousness. Hence, the authors concluded that the motives of food event attendees were distinctively different from those of the other groups as they were particularly antithetical to those who attended balls and music events.

Nicholson and Pearce (2000) selected two food and beverage festivals as well as two other types of festivals to identify the differences between them. They found that different events attracted different audiences, and people attending different food and beverage festivals shared some common characteristics. The authors later study (2001) at the same festivals focuses on the profile characteristics of visitors who attend these events. By adding two event-specific factors in the motivation item list and employing an open-ended question why did you come to this event, five dominant factors that motivated event-goers to attend one of the food and beverage festivals were identified as event socialization, event novelty/uniqueness, escape, entertainment/excitement and family. At another food and beverage festival, the event socialization and event novel/uniqueness also emerged as the top two

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reasons for attending the festival, followed by the two motivation dimensions of escape and family. The factor entertainment/excitement did not appear as a dominant motivation dimensions at this festival.

Cela et al., (2008) investigated visitors motivations at eleven local food festivals in Northeast Iowa Communities, using a 5-point Likert-type scale as well as factor analysis. The reasons for attending these food festivals were classified into three categories, namely, to attend the festival (to relax, to enjoy the scenery, to have a good time with friends and family ), to support , taste and purchase local food (to taste local/fresh foods, to taste food easily available in my hometown, to purchase organic food, to purchase local foods, to support local producers, to connect to a sense of community and place), and to learn about local food (to learn about the food traditions of the region, to learn about the food-producing process, to learn new things in Northeast Iowa). The results of factor analysis have shown that most visitors were motivated to simply attend the festival, followed by the motivation factors of to support, taste and purchase local food and to learn about local food (p.75).

In general, most of the studies reported in the literature involving food festival motivations followed the theoretical framework of travel motivation research. Motivation items and research methods used in these studies were primarily based on visitor motivation research concerning festival and event tourism. Li and Petrick (2006) have concluded that research design and methods employed in those

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pioneering festival motivation studies involves three steps: the authors first developed a list of motivation items and asked respondents to indicate the importance of each item in their festival-attending decision; the results were then factor analyzed into several dimensions; finally statistical tools were used to identify relationships between these motivation dimensions with selected event or demographic variables. The literature review has indicated that efforts had been made to explore the motivation factors particularly related to food festivals. Open-ended questions and motivation items have been developed to measure visitors motivations for attending food events, and some event-specific factors connected with the food festivals have been identified. Previous studies have shown that different food festivals may attract visitors with common motivations, and food or food-related items and activities could be significant factors that motivate people to attend the festivals. However, the literature review has also shown that there is a lack of research studies on in-depth investigation on the factors that motivate people to attend food festivals. Therefore, more efforts from festival scholars and practitioners are needed to better understand the food festival visitors motivation patterns.

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2.4 Food Involvement

Involvement is a characteristic of either a product or of an individual. Food involvement refers to the level of the importance of food in an individuals life (Bell & Marshall, 2003). Previous studies have identified that food involvement is a relatively stable characteristic; individuals who are more highly involved with food are better able to discriminate between foods (Arvola, Lahteenma ki, & Tuorila, 1999; Bell & Marshall, 2003; Chen, 2007; Kim et al., 2010b; Pliner & Hobden, 1992; Raudenbush & Frank, 1999; Ritchey, Frank, Hursti, & Tuorila, 2003; Tuorila, Meiselman, Bell, Cardello & Johnson, 1994, Tuorila, Lahteenma ki, Pohjalainen, & Lotti, 2001). It has also been found that the level of food involvement is likely to vary across individuals (Bell & Marshall, 2003; Kim et al., 2009b), and high food-involved individuals are usually more sensation seeking (Zuckerman, 1979) and more inclined toward new food experiences than low food-involved individuals (Bell & Marshall, 2003; Cohen & Avieli, 2004; Pliner & Hobden, 1979).

Food involvement is a new topic in food festival research. Very little literature is available concerning food festival visitors characteristics with respect to food involvement, but the impact of individuals involvement with culinary products on their tourist experiences has drawn attention from the tourism research community. For example, Cohen and Avieli (2004) noticed that high food-involved individuals may be more inclined towards new experiences. Thus, they assert that to investigate unfamiliar, foreign, and exotic food consumption at a tourist destination, it is
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necessary to consider the visitors personality traits of food involvement, which may predict the likelihood of future food intake (Cohen & Avieli, 2004; Kim, et al., 2010b). In the context of leisure and travel study, a number of researchers have begun to establish the basic tenets of food/wine involvement study (e.g., Brown et al., 2006; Kim, et al., 2010b; Yuan, Morrison, Cai, Dodd, & Linton, 2008). Although slow, the concept of food involvement has been steadily developed to predict and/or assess the likelihood of visitors food purchasing and consumption behaviors.

2.4.1 Product Involvement and Consumer Behaviors

Previous studies on food involvement were mostly based on consumer behavior research in which the concept of involvement was widely used. Krugman (1965) introduced this concept to consumer psychology and identified it as an important factor in explaining consumer behaviors. According to Celsi and Olson (1988), involvement refers to a consumers overall subjective feeling of personal relevance. It is a motivational state, which affects the extent and focus of consumers attention and comprehension processes as well as overt behaviors such as shopping and consumption activities (Celsi & Olson, 1988; Tarkiainen & Sundqvist, 2009).

As a psychological concept, involvement has been used intensively in a variety of marketing studies. It has been commonly accepted that involvement is a motivational and goal-directed emotional state that determines the personal relevance of a purchase decision to a buyer ((Lockshin, Quester, & Spawton, 2010; Rothschild, 1984). Some
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researchers seek to analyze the influences of product involvement on consumers attitudes, brand preferences, and perceptions, for the purposes of assisting market segmentation (Brisoux & Cheron, 1990; Celsi & Olson, 1988; Park & Young, 1986; Quester & Smart, 1998). One underlying theme that appears to remain constant is that involvement is postulated as the consumers perceived importance or relevance for an object, such as a product, based on inherent needs, value, and interest (Yuan, et al., 2008). It has been found that the construct of product involvement may exert influences on brand loyalty, product information search processing, responses to advertising communications, diffusion of innovations and, ultimately, product choice decisions (Bell & Marshall, 2003).

Laurent and Kapferer (1985a, 1985b) arguably conducted the first study dealing specifically with culinary consumers involvement profile. Their ground-breaking conceptual and scale-development research comprised the contextual basis for evaluating the Consumer Involvement Profile (CIP) (Brown et al., 2006). The two authors developed a new scale including product- and activity-specific involvement measures to investigate ten different involvement based market segments for culinary goods. They argue that the consumer-involvement profile comprises the products pleasure value, its sign or symbolic value, risk importance, and the probability of purchase error. The results of their research have revealed that involvement is both a multidimensional construct and a motivational force. Therefore, the authors suggest that researchers should measure consumers involvement profiles instead of focusing

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on the single involvement level (Laurent & Kapferer, 1985).

Juhl and Poulsen (2000) examined whether involvement in fish had significant effects on consumer behavior by using the measurement scales developed by Mittal and Lees (1989). Based on the data collected from Norwegian households in Denmark

in 1999, Juhl and Poulsen (2000) identified the antecedents (e.g., sign value, hedonic value product utility and brand risk) and effects (e.g., cognitive complexity, frequency of product usage, shopping enjoyment, social observations and number of brands considered) of fish product involvement. They found that sign value and product utility influenced the level of involvement in fish as a product group, and the utility (i.e., health-related) was a key concept in explaining food involvement. In terms of the influences of involvement in fish on consumer behaviors, they found that the frequency of product usage and shopping enjoyment were most heavily influenced by
the level of a consumers involvement in fish products.

Olsen (2001) developed a theoretical model of involvement in the consumption of food products and tested the model by conducting a survey on households that consume seafood as common family meals in Norway. To identify the roles that different attitudinal and motivational factors play in explaining seafood consumption behavior, Olsen (2001) integrated different theories and models proposed in previous studies with a number of new variables related to attitudes about food, such as negative feelings, social norms, and moral obligations to measure the construct of

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involvement. He found that seafood involvement played a role as a mediator between the consumers age, attitudes/preferences towards eating seafood, and frequent consumption of seafood; negative feelings and moral obligation were the most important antecedents of involvement. Moreover, attitudes, negative feelings, social norms and moral obligation proved to be important, reliable and different constructs and explained 63% of the variation in seafood involvement (Olsen, 2001).

Bell and Marshall (2003) investigated the relations between food involvement and food choice variables with the aim to develop a reliable scale that would measure the perceived level of importance of foods for individuals. Based on Goodys (1982) five-phase model of food lifecycle, which includes the activities of food acquisition, preparation, cooking, eating and disposal, Bell and Marshall (2003) developed the food involvement scale (FIS), consisting of twelve items that associated with the five activities, to measure the food involvement levels. Results of their study demonstrate that the levels of food involvement were associated with discrimination and hedonic ratings for a range of foods. Thus, the authors suggest that food involvement, as measured by the FIS, may be an important mediator to consider when undertaking research with food and food habits (Bell & Marshall, 2003, p.235). The authors subsequent research (Marshall & Bell, 2004) on the undergraduates of a UK university further related the FIS to various demographic traits. It was found that higher levels of food involvement were associated with living with two or more friends, cooking for ones self, having regular meals, and being older. The authors

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concluded that as measured by the FIS, food involvement appears to mediate differences in food choices and food choice patterns.

Eertmans, Victoir, Vansant and Bergh (2005) conducted a study on the relationships between consumers food-related personality traits (include food involvement and food neophobia), specific food choice motives, and food intake. They found that motives, such as sensory appeal and health, mediated the effect of food involvement on the intake of specific food categories; the relation of motives with both food intake and dietary healthfulness appeared to vary with level of food involvement or food neophobia (p.714). To understand what motives determine the consumers attitude and purchase intentions to organic foods, Chen (2007) conducted a national self-administered consumer questionnaire survey in Taiwan. The research findings show that six food choice motives that had positive impacts on consumers attitude to organic foods were mood, natural content, animal welfare, environmental protection, political values, and religion; the convenience food choice motive had a negative impact on consumers attitude to organic foods. Moreover, the research findings reveal that consumers food-related personality traits, which include their personal involvement with food and food neophobia, exert moderating effects on the relationships between some of their food choice motives and their attitude to organic foods, but only food involvement had an effect on the consumers intention to purchase organic foods.

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2.4.2 The Impact of Food Involvement in Tourist Experiences

As food has become increasingly important in promoting tourist destinations (Kim et al., 2010b), the basic tenets of food involvement study have been established in leisure and travel contexts. For example, Cohen and Avieli (2004) discussed issues related to bodily involvement when conducting research on the attraction and impediment of food in a tourism context. They argue that food neophobic tendencies significantly impact tourists attitudes toward food and beverage, as eating involves actual bodily involvement with the unfamiliar environment of the destination and the intake of food and beverage. Therefore, the authors suggest that, to investigate unfamiliar, foreign, and exotic food consumption at a tourist destination, it is necessary to consider the food-related traits, which can predict the likelihood of future food intake (Cohen & Avieli, 2004).

Some tourism and hospitality researchers (e.g., Brown et al., 2006; Getz & Brown, 2006; Gross & Brown, 2006, 2008; Kim et al., 2010b; Sparks, 2007) have investigated the visitors food and/or wine involvement within the culinary tourism context. Gross and Browns (2006) research on the roles of involvement in holiday experiences assessed the dimensional structure of food and wine involvement for tourists, and found that the dimension of food and wine involvement is an important indicator of tourism experiences. Likewise, Getz and Brown (2006) argue that the centrality of wine to an individuals leisure pursuits is likely to be a predictor of wine tourism. In their research on the level and characteristics of demand for long-distance

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wine tourism among wine consumers in Calgary, Canada, the researchers gave specific attention to the success components for wine tourism marketing and found that a consumers level of involvement with wine, from the perspective of how central it is in ones leisure and general lifestyle, is likely to be a determinant of wine-related travel (p.157). Gross and Browns (2008) study on the leisure activity involvement in tourism experiences further confirmed that food and wine involvement is a positive predictor of a place of attachment. Thus, the authors concluded that food and wine could be one of the key multidimensional constructs of leisure activity involvement.

Based on previous involvement research (e.g., Lockshin, Spawton, & Macintosh, 1997; Quester & Smart, 1998), Brown et al. (2006) have developed a fifteen-item, three-faceted wine involvement scale (WIS) to explore the heterogeneity of high involved wine consumers at wine clubs and wine events. They note that although some previous studies had found that involved consumers usually buy wine more often and at higher prices, there is a lack of tourism research to examine how high involvement with a culinary product may influence leisure travel to regions which specialize in the production of that product (p. 34). Therefore, the authors conducted research on 161 wine consumers in Calgary, Alberta, Canada to investigate whether the consumers wine involvement was accompanied by a desire to visit wine producing regions. After developing and testing an 18-items WIS, three items from the original WIS pool were removed due to the lack of fit and poor internal consistency scores. The results of the research reveal that factors relating to expertise,

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enjoyment, and symbolic centrality were appropriate facets of the WIS, and each of the factors contained five items, which could provide strong evidence of internal consistency.

2.4.3 Food Involvement and Culinary Festival Visitors

The development of food involvement research in culinary festival context is still in its infancy. More specifically, research for food festival attendees is even younger, and the integration of visitors event motivations and food involvement research is almost never seen. Only a few studies on culinary festivals have examined the festival attendees food or wine involvement but, usually, as one of the elements of their research.

Previous studies on wine festival visitors have found that wine festivals largely attract wine enthusiasts who would pay repeat visits to the event (Weiler, Truong, & Griffiths, 2004). Consequently, some festival researchers raised the question that Can wine festival visitors be segmented on the basis of their personal involvement with wine? (Yuan et al., 2008, p. 149). Based on a visitor survey conducted at the Vintage Indiana Wine and Food Festival, Yuan et al. (2008) investigated the festival attendees personal involvement with wine. The Personal Involvement Inventory (PII), which was developed and validated in the field of consumer studies (Zaichkowsky, 1985; Mittal, 1995), is used in this study as it is one of the most widely used self-report measures in marketing research on involvement (Yuan et al., 2008, p. 151).
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The PII applied in Yuan et al.s (2008) study incorporated five pairs of seven-point bipolar descriptive expressions to classify the festival visitors: wine is 1) important/unimportant; 2) of concern/of no concern at all; 3) means a lot/means nothing; 4) significant/insignificant; and 5) matters/does not matter at all. In addition, a total of 25 items were generated to measure visitors motivations. As a result of factor analysis, a four-factor solution, including dimensions of festival and escape, wine, socialization, and family togetherness, was produced. Nineteen motivational items were retained in this process. Accordingly, visitors were clustered into three groups: the high involvement group, the medium involvement group, and the low involvement group. Differences between the groups were subsequently identified with regard to the motivations for attending, perceptions of the festival, and intention to visit local wineries after the festival.

Kim et al. (2010b) investigated the relationships between food involvement, satisfaction, and loyalty among visitors attending the Gwangju Kimchi Festival 2008, in South Korea. This research is based on the work of Gross and Brown (2006), who proposed the importance of food involvement in tourism experiences, as well as Getz and Brown (2006), who suggested that the centrality of local beverages to an individuals leisure pursuits is likely to be a predictor of food tourism. Food involvement, together with food neophobia, was defined as food-related personality traits in this research to explore the relationships between food festival visitors food-related personality, satisfaction and loyalty. Measures of the visitors food

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involvement level followed Bell and Marshalls (2003) FIS. Considering the objectives of the study, statements related to the disposal and preparation were finally deleted and, thus, the remaining questions focused on eating, acquisitions, and cooking. Seven items including the three phases of the life cycle of food (acquisition, cooking, eating) were finally adopted in the current study. The results of the study show that tourists taking part in food events and festivals were more highly involved with food, and food involvement had a positive effect on visitors loyalty. Although the study has not found a positive relationship between visitors food involvement level and their satisfaction level with the festival, it has reveled that food involvement, together with food neophobia, did relate to the festival attendees food choice and predict the likelihood of their future food intake.

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CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY
This chapter describes the hypothesized conceptual model and research methods that underlie this study. The first section of this chapter provides a summary of the theoretical models and hypotheses of the study; the rest of the chapter describes the post-positive research approach that frames the data gathering and analysis. The description of the study approaches adopted in this study is organized in the following order: 1) the research site and background information of the festival; 2) the research instrument with the rationale to design each part of the survey questionnaire; 3) the sampling and data collection methods; 4) the data analysis procedure based on the Tobit Model regression analysis and t-tests.

3.1 Theoretical Models and Hypotheses

The results of the literature review show that visitors expenditures at food festivals have significant relationships with a number of factors that are related to their event motivations and personal characteristics. In addition, there are possible correlations among individuals food involvement levels, their motivations for attending a food festival, and their subsequent expenditures during the festival. This research focuses on examining the relationships between festival expenditure patterns, event motivations, and food involvement levels among visitors attending a food festival.
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The conceptual model for the current research is shown in Fig 3-1.

Figure 3-1 The Hypothesized Conceptual Model

Hypothetically, visitors expenditure patterns at food festivals are related to their motivations for attending the festivals and their personal involvement with food. Thus,
H1.Visitors total expenditures at a food festival are correlated to their motivations for

attending. H2. Food festival attendees expenditures on food or food-related items at the festival are correlated to their motivations for attending. H3. Visitors total expenditures at a food festival are correlated to their food involvement levels. H4. Food festival attendees expenditures on food or food-related items at the festival
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are correlated to their food involvement levels. H5. Visitors who score high on the Food Involvement Scale are likely motivated to attend by food-related factors. H6. Visitors who score low on the Food Involvement Scale are likely motivated by event-related factors.

3.2 Research Site

The visitor survey of the current study was conducted at the 9th China (Hefei) Crawfish Festival (CHCF) in Hefei city, Anhui province, China ( see Appendix IV: Location of Hefei in China). Hefei is a prefecture-level city located in central China; it has been the capital city of Anhui province since 1949. The population of the Hefei city was 4,867,400 in 2008 (Hefei Online Government, 2010). Historically, the city is not a tourism destination due to a lack of tourist attractions. The citys economy is primarily based on processing agricultural products and a variety of light industries, such as textile and electronics industries. In 2008, Hefeis GDP per capita was 34,482 yuan, and the average annual wage was 30,603 yuan (Hefei Online Government, 2010).

Crawfish has become a part of Hefei peoples diet since the late 1980s. The earliest crawfish appeared in Hefeis farmer markets were seen as low-status foods. Farms trapped wild crawfish in home-made wire traps and sold their catch directly to the

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public. Crawfish were cheap and naturally produced but few people eat them, as they were seen as unclean foods because crawfish eat mud and garbage in ponds or rice fields where they live. Therefore, crawfish were also called poor peoples shrimp as, usually, people who couldnt afford shrimp eat them as substitutes. Due to the low price and greater natural supply of the food, cooked crawfish were sold in Hefeis many on-street food stalls and gradually became a popular midnight snack in the 1990. However, while eating crawfish is no longer something to be ashamed of, the crawfish are no longer poor peoples shrimp; increasing market demand began to challenge local crawfish supply and in turn impelled the rise in the status of this food. Today, crawfish is an expensive food item in Hefei. Over the last two decades, Hefei crawfish have created a large market and formed an industrial chain integrated with crawfish cultivation, processing, and marketing. Crawfish has become an important part of the citys culture and economy (C. Chow, personal communication, January 25, 2010).

In 2002, the Hefei News Agency, which is the most important official news agency in Hefei, established the Hefei Crawfish Association (HCA) with the aim of staging the CHCF to promote local crawfish and tourism products. Over the past nine years of development, the CHCF has enjoyed a good reputation in China, has been ranked among the Top 50 Chinese Festivals and gained the honor of the provinces 10 Most Famous Exhibitions in 2009. The total attendance for the 2009 CHCF was over 100,000 people (Hefei Online Government, 2010).The festival is now exclusively managed by the HCA. The executive manager of the HCA, Chao Chow, explained

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that the main objectives of the HCA for staging the CHCF are to promote, celebrate, improve, and advance the culture and reputation of Hefei Crawfish through the provision of a program that is accessible, inclusive, participatory, and enjoyable for residents, and tourists of all ages (personal communication, January 25, 2010). The 9th China (Hefei) Crawfish Festival started at Hefei Heping Park on July 9th, 2010, and lasted for 7 days, ending July 15th. The festival activities included grand parades, painting and calligraphy contests, car shows, crawfish exhibitions, crawfish eating contests, cookery shows, and music concerts. According to the HCA, the 9th CHCF is a grand event with the largest number of activities since it was formed, and the visitor expenditures are primarily on food and beverages consumed at the festival, food and beverages taken away from the festival, souvenirs and gifts, and entertainment Although occasional rain during the festival period resulted in cancellation of some outdoor activities and caused inconvenience for visitors, according to the festival organizer, about 80,000 visitors attended the festival (C. Chow, personal communication, July 10, 2010).

3.3 Research Instrument

A self-administered questionnaire was designed to survey the visitors at the 9th CHCF. Previous studies on festival visitors have identified a number of potential determinants of visitor expenditures, such as visit purpose, length of stay, visit frequency, motivations, satisfaction, residency, age, gender, and income. In order to

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test the proposed conceptual model of the current study, this visitor survey primarily focuses on investigating the relationships among the visitors festival expenditure patterns, their motivations for attending the festival, and their food involvement characteristics. The survey instrument was constructed based on theories and conceptual frameworks developed by past research, including food symbolism theory (Bessiere, 1998), symbolic consumption at food festivals (Rusher, 2003), unconscious theory (Freud, 1915), needs-hierarchy theory (Maslow, 1943), escape-seeking dichotomy (Dunn & Iso-Ahola, 1991; Iso-Ahola, 1980, 1982; Mannell & Iso-Ahola, 1987), push-pull forces (Dann, 1977, 1981; and Crompton, 1979), and the five-phase model of the food lifecycle (Goody, 1982). Bell and Marshalls Food Involvement Scale (FIS) was implemented to measure the visitors food-related personality traits. Basic information relating to the respondents age, gender, and visit traits were also collected to gain insight into the profile of the visitors to the 9th CHCF.

Four sets of questions were designed for the survey. In the first section of the questionnaire (see Appendix II), respondents were asked about their age, gender, where they came from, and how many hours they spent at the festival. The residence was measured using a three-group nominal variable to distinguish those who living with the city of Hefei from those came from outside of Hefei but within the Anhui province and those from outside of the province. In addition, respondents who came to the festival with companions were askd to report their party type (e.g., a couple, family, friend (s)/ relative (s), organized group) and party size.

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The second section of the questionnaire collected information about the visitors expenditure patterns. The literature review has shown that visitors attending festivals usually spend money on admission fees, food and beverages, lodging, shopping, entertainment, and transportation (Booth & Weeks, 1978; Crompton, 1999; Gartner & Holecek, 1993; Ryan, 1998; etc.). However, taking into consideration the logistics of the 9th CHCF (e.g., free admission, parking areas quite distant, audience mostly local), the respondents were required to report their festival expenditures in five categories: 1) food and beverages consumed at the festival, 2) food and beverages taken away, 3) goods and gifts other than food and beverages, 4) entertainment, and 5) other (s). Following the WTOs (2005) definition, visitor expenditure in the current study encompasses not only the festival visitors spending during the festival but also the goods and services prepaid by others on behalf of visitors. For example, visitors who used coupons to purchase beer during the festival were asked to report the original price of the beer during the survey. In addition, respondents accompanied by other people were specifically asked to report their personal expenditures.

After reporting their festival expenditures, the respondents were asked in the third section of the questionnaire to indicate the importance of different factors that motivated them to attend. According to Crompton and McKay (1997), a festival implies that visitors are likely to be seeking cultural enrichment, education, novelty, and socialization (p.429). Uysal et al. (1993) and Mohr et al. (1993) also note that

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five main motivation dimensions - escape/relaxations, excitement/thrills, event novelty, socialization, and family togetherness - occurred repeatedly across various studies dealing with festival visitor motivations. Although very few motivation studies have been conducted specifically on food festivals, previous studies undertaken in other festival settings have identified a number of salient dimensions of festival motivations. The primary factors that motivate people to attend festivals and events include the desire for novelty (Backman, et al., 1995; Crompton, 1979; Crompton & McKay, 1997; Chang, 2005; Scott, 1996; Schneider & Backman, 1996; Formica & Uysal, 1996, 1998; Lee 2000; Uysal et al., 1993, etc.), socialization (Gelder & Robinson, 2009; Lee, 2000; Nicholson & Pearce, 2001; Petrick & Li, 2006; Ralston & Crompton, 1988; Thompson & Schofield, 2009; etc.), escape (Dwar et al., 2001; Lee, 2000; Lee et al., 2004; Mohr et al., 1993; Nicholson & Pearce, 2000, 2001; Scott 1996; Schneider & Backman, 1996; Uysal et al., 1993; etc.), entertainment (Formica & Uysal, 1996; Formica & Murrmann, 1998; Nicholson & Pearce, 2000, 2001; etc.), and family (Backman et al., 1995; Chang, 2005; Crompton, 1979; Nicholson & Pearce, 2001; Schofield & Thompson, 2007; Thompson & Schofield, 2009; etc.). Therefore, in the third section of the questionnaire, eight important dimensions of festival motivations that have been identified by previous studies were represented by eight event-related motivational factors to measure the visitors event-related motivations to the festival: Excitement (to enjoy the festival environment); Social (to get together with friends/relatives); Relaxation (to reduce tension, anxieties, and frustrations); Culture (to experience the festival culture of Hefei); Escape (to

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experience a change of pace from everyday life); Entertainment (to participate in the festival activities); Family (to increase a sense of family and happiness ); and Novelty (to see what the festival looks like).

In addition to the eight festival-related motivational factors, eight food-related motivations are listed in the third section of the questionnaire. Each motivation involves a symbolic characteristic of foods or food consumption in the festival context including Sensory appeal (to taste crawfish of different flavors); Culture (to experience the crawfish culture of Hefei); Celebration (to celebrate the coming crawfish season); Prestige (to tell friends/relatives about eating crawfish at the festival); Physical environment (to enjoy crawfish at the festival as it prompts a different feeling of pleasure in comparison to at home or restaurant); Family (to eat crawfish with family at the festival as a pleasurable experience); Social (to improve current relationship with friends/relatives by enjoying crawfish together); and Knowledge (to learn new things about crawfish). These food-related motivations derive from the findings of previous food literature and culinary festival research (Bessiere, 1998; Boniface, 2003; Cohen & Avieli, 2004; Frochot, 2003; Hjalager & Richards, 2002; Humphery et al., 1988; Humphery, 1979; Kim et al., 2009; Long, 2004; McKercher, Okumus, & Okumus, 2008; etc.), reflecting the common dimensions acknowledged by different researchers.

Overall, the third section of the questionnaire measures two dimensions of visitors

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motivation for attending the festival: event-related and food-related. The visitors responded to a list of 16 motivational factors based on a five-point Likert scale ranging from Not at all important to Very important. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the visitors motivations for attending the festival, this section also includes an open-ended question allowing respondents to report their specific reasons for attending the festival.

The last section of the questionnaire utilized ten items of the original twelve items in Bell and Marshalls (2003) Food Involvement Scale (FIS) to measure the CHCF visitors food involvement traits. The original FIS involves the entire five phases of Goodys (1982) food life cycle, including Acquisition, Preparation, Cooking, Eating, and Disposal, as its five subsets. In keeping with the aims of this study, the Disposal subset, which includes two FIS items, was dropped from the questionnaire. Hence, the remaining four subsets consist of ten items that were believed to best represent food involvement traits in relation to food festivals. According to Bell and Marshall (2003), the items Compared with other daily decisions, my food choices are very important and I do most or all of my own food shopping relate to acquisition; the items I like to mix or chop food and I care whether or not a table is nicely set relate to preparation; the items Cooking or Barbequing is fun and I enjoy cooking for others and myself relate to cooking; and the items I think a lot about food each day, Talking about what I ate or am going to eat is something I like to do, when I travel, one of the things I anticipate most is

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eating the food there and when I eat out, I think or talk much about how the food tastes relate to eating.

To make the questionnaire more understandable, slight modifications of the scale items were made to the FIS. In Bell and Marshalls (2003) original work, half of the FIS items were stated negatively, and scoring on the scales for the negatively stated items were then reversed for analysis. In the current study, these negatively stated items were phrased positively, for example, I dont think much about food each day became I think about food each day. When completing the fourth section of the questionnaire, respondents were asked to rate their level of agreement/disagreement with each FIS item on a five-point Likert scale, instead of Bell and Marshalls (2003) original seven-point scale, possible answers ranged from 1=Strongly disagree to 5=Strongly agree.

Furthermore, a Training Package (see Appendices) which included the Instructions for Conducting the Survey, Questions Most Frequently Asked by Visitors Information Letter, and Script for Surveyors Conducting Survey was developed to give instructions for surveyors using the questionnaire. In the development and refining stage, the questionnaire and training package were translated into Chinese and sent for a check of its clarity and validity to the festival organizer, who had agreed to help conduct the survey, and also to a small sample of people (members of the Hefei Crawfish Association) who attended last years CHCF. Based on their feedback,

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minor modifications, such as to the questionnaire format and wording, and in the questions that visitors might ask were made. The final Chinese language questionnaire and training materials were then developed accordingly. Before the main survey, ethic clearance from the Office of Research Ethics at the University of Waterloo was received for the revised questionnaire and training materials.

This questionnaire took approximately five minutes to complete. The two assumptions made in this study are as follows: (1) The respondents can accurately recall their expenditures, suffering no memory decay. (2) The respondents honestly provided information during the survey.

3.4 Sampling and Data Collection

The questionnaire survey was conducted at Heping Park, Hefei, China, the site of the 9th China(Hefei) Crawfish Festival. The study population was festival visitors, and consisted of individual adults, couples, groups of adults with friends/relatives, and families with children. This research adopted a convenience sampling approach to survey festival visitors as it is not feasible to use a random sampling method at this non-gated event for which site access is completely unrestricted. Six surveyors were recruited and trained to distribute and collect the questionnaires during the main survey. They were assisted by the Instructions for Conducting the Survey,

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Questions Most Frequently Asked by Visitors, and Information Letter, designed for the research. Surveyors were also instructed to familiarize themselves with the Script for Surveyors Conducting Surveys, which was developed to ensure that their interaction with visitors would effectively encourage participation in the survey and, thus, increase response validity. Based on the surveyors observations, potential participants were selected when leaving the festival; only adults assumed to be capable of making financial decisions at the festival and understanding the research questions were invited to complete the questionnaires. The survey excluded all visitors to the park who did not attend the festival.

The surveyors operated from 5 pm to 9 pm during the first six days of the festival period, as this seven-day festival ran from 4 pm to midnight every day during the first six days and closed at 10 pm the last day (the closing ceremony ran from 8:00 pm to 9:30 pm on that day). To improve the representativeness of the sample, the surveyors covered six fixed locations (Appendix IV) by intercepting visitors who exited the festival from different directions. Both the physical layouts as well as the lighting conditions of the park were considered in making this choice. When conducting the survey, the surveyors were instructed to stay near their respective survey points, using an on-site intercept procedure to invite visitors leaving the festival to respond to the questionnaire. Data collection was undertaken according to assigned quotas.

Before distributing the questionnaires, the first screening question, Have you enjoyed

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the festival, ensured that only real festival visitors, who came to the park to attend the festival, were included in the sample. The surveyors were also required to ensure that survey participants were older than 18. If the selected visitor was an eligible respondent and agreed to take part in the survey, he/she was then asked to read the cover letter of his/her questionnaire, which was also the information letter of the survey, to obtain more detailed information about the research. For couples or group attendees, the surveyors were instructed to distribute only one questionnaire and let the group members select one person to respond. In this way, the surveyors were able to give more chances to other visitors to participate in the survey and, thus, gather comprehensive information about the visitors characteristics. As selected visitors began to complete the questionnaire, the surveyors could approach the next potential respondent to repeat the same procedure.

The questionnaires were collected immediately upon completion. In total, 1000 questionnaires were distributed and 947 were finally obtained over the period of the festival. After sorting, a total of 691 out of 947 questionnaires were finally considered valid for analysis. This comparatively low percentage occurred because some questionnaires had significant item non-response and deliberately misleading answers and so were dropped to minimize the studys non-sampling error.

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3.5 Data Analysis and Statistic Tools

The raw quantitative data obtained from the valid questionnaires (N=691) were coded and then entered into statistical packages STATA (version 10.0) and SPSS (version 16.0), for analysis. This studys dependent variable is the amount of respondents expenses incurred at the festival in Chinese Yuans (). The total expenditure was created by adding the amount of Yuans from each category of festival expenditure, including food and beverages, souvenirs and gifts, entertainment and recreation, and other spending. The food-related expenditure was the sum of the visitors expenditures on food and beverages consumed at as well as taken away from the festival. Talbe 3-1 shows the two sets of mean and standard deviations of the dependent variable. One is based on the full sample size of 691 with zero expenditures included and the other on the smaller sample size of 607 with zero expenditures excluded. More explanation of the sample treatment is given below in conjunction with the introduction of Tobit Regression Analysis.

Variables Total expenditures

a b

Table 3-1 Dependent Variables Mean (s)b fa y0 y0 y0 y0 691 607 34.56 (39.68) 39.34 (40.05) 691 595 31.10 (35.71) 36.11 (36.05)

Food-related expenditures

frequency of respondents with expenditure at the festival mean and standard deviation of expenditure amount

The independent variables are the motivation scale and food involvement scale reported by the respondents. The motivation variables were grouped into two

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sub-categories (event-related and food-related), and each category involved eight motivators. Although five respondents reported other motivational factors that had not been listed on the questionnaire, such as attending the festival just for a walk or visiting friend(s)/relative(s) working at the festival, these motivational factors were ultimately ignored due to the very low rate of response (less than 0.7%). The food involvement variable is a four-category measurement (acquisition, preparation, cooking, and eating) consisting of ten food involvement items. The descriptive statistics of this independent variable are shown in Table 3-2.

The proposed conceptual model was first verified using Tobit Regression Analysis. Although other more commonly used statistical techniques, such as the Classical Linear Regression (CLR) and Logistic Regression, can be used to study relationships between consumer expenditure and characteristics, the current study employed a Tobit model because of its special ability to allow the inclusion of zero-value dependent variables. In this studys sample, 87.8% reported positive values for festival expenditures in different categories, and the remaining 12.2% reported zero expenditures. In statistical practice, a sample containing zero expenditure usually presents a unique problem of cross-section survey data. For example, using the CLR method, data must be treated in one of two ways. One is to omit all dependent variables with no positive values. For this study, the resulting deficiency was a reduced estimation efficiency caused by a smaller sample size (from 691 to 607). In addition, excluding the zero expenditure is tantamount to the assumption that these

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Table 3-2 Independent Variables

Categories and Description of Variables Motivations for Festival Attendance

Variable Names Overall Motivations Event-related motivations Excitement Novelty Culture Relaxation Escape Family Social Entertainment

Event-related festival motivations * to enjoy the festival environment * to see what the festival looks like * to experience the festival culture of Hefei * to reduce tension, anxieties, and frustrations * to experience a change of pace from everyday life * to increase a sense of family and happiness * to get together with friends/relatives * to participate in the festival activities

Food-related festival motivations * to celebrate the coming crawfish season * to taste crawfish of different flavors * to learn new things about crawfish * to experience the crawfish culture of Hefei experience * to improve current relationship with friends/relatives by enjoying crawfish together

Food-related motivations Celebration Sensory appeal Knowledge Culture

* to eat crawfish with family at the festival as a pleasurable Family Social

* to enjoy crawfish at the festival as it prompts a different Physical feeling of pleasure than does dining at home or restaurant environment * to tell friends/relatives about eating crawfish at the festival Prestige

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Food Involvement

Overall Food Involvement Acquisition

Acquisition

* Compared with other daily decisions, my food choices are Food choice very important * I do most or all of my own food shopping Preparing * I like to mix or chop food * I care whether or not a table is nicely set Cooking * Cooking or Barbequing is fun * I enjoy cooking for others and myself Eating * When I eat out, I think or talk about how the food tastes * I think a lot about food each day Food shopping Preparing Food processing Food presentation Cooking Cooking delight Cooking practice Eating Taste judging

Food preoccupation * Talking about what I ate or am going to eat is something I Food discussion like to do * When I travel, one of the things I anticipate most is eating Exotic food different food experiences
* motivation statements or FIS items

visitors, and many others represented by them, were not, are not, and will not be in the food festival market. This assumption does not hold in theory, nor does it hold in reality (Cai, 1998). The other common treatment of the data is, either using ordinary least squares (OLS) or other estimators, to transform all the non-positive dependent variable values into a single value of zero. The sample thus becomes censored with dependent variables limited to zero as well as the creation of non-limited values (Greene, 1993). It has been proved in numerous studies that this type of censored data leads to inconsistent and biased estimates (Amemiya, 1973; Baba, 1990; Gieseman &
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Moulton, 1986; Kennedy, 1992; Maddala, 1987; McCracken & Brandt, 1987). According to McCracken and Brandt (1987) and McDonald and Moffitt (1980), the Tobit technique not only calls for the inclusion of all observations, which increases estimation efficiency, but also allows estimation of both the total marginal effects of consumers characteristics on their positive spending as well as the probability of moving from zero spending to positive spending.

Therefore, Tobit Regression Analysis was chosen as an appropriate approach for the current study because it has certain advantages over any other methods when examining the correlations between a non-negative dependent variable and an independent variable. Specifically, the model was used to determine whether a particular independent variable explains spending variations when the others are controlled. The general Tobit Model used in the current study is defined as

and

where yi is the expenditure amount of respondent i, and is defined as the dependent variable whenever it is above zero and zero otherwise, xi are the independent variables pertaining to visitor i (motivation and FIS scores), a parameter which determines the relationship between dependent and independent variables, and i the error terms.

After obtaining the results of the Tobit parameter estimates of the coefficients, a series

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of t-tests were conducted to further investigate the visitors motivations for attending according to their food involvement levels. Paired sample testing was first used to compare the great and less food-involved visitors festival motivations. Survey respondents were broken down into high and low food involvement groups by their total FIS scores. The two groups scores on event-related and food related motivations were then compared at the .05 level to see whether respondents in the high food involvement score (high-FS) group attended the festival with more food-related motivations than event-related ones, and whether respondents in the low food involvement score (low-FS) group were primarily motivated to attend the festival by event-related factors.

Independent sample testing was also conducted in this study to examine the two segments spending on food and/or beverages and to verify the findings from Tobit regression analysis pertaining to the correlations between respondents food involvement levels and their festival expenditures. To gain a wider understanding of factors that may affect food festival visitors expenditures, independent samples tests were further performed to differentiate the demographic and visit characteristics of the festivals heavy spenders from light spenders. Respondents were divided into the heavy-TE group and light-TE group based on their total expenditures during the CHCF. The demographic and visit characteristics of the heavy and light total expenditure groups were then compared at the .05 level to determine whether they are significantly different.

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CHAPTER 4 RESULTS
This chapter reports on the results from the descriptive analysis, Tobit regression analysis, and t-tests of the empirical data in four sections. The first section describes statistics of the respondents age group, gender, and festival visit traits. The findings pertinent to the samples expenditure patterns, event-related and food-related motivations, and food involvement characteristics follow. The second section focuses on testing the studys first four hypotheses. Based on the results of the Tobit regression analysis, the relationships between visitor expenditures and a number of independent variables were described. The third section explains the results from a series of t-tests, including paired samples tests and independent samples tests, which were preformed to verify the two remaining research hypotheses. Based on the key points of the research findings, in the last section of the chapter, the hypothesized conceptual model is extensively modified to demonstrate the relationships between visitors food festival expenditures, motivations, and food involvement in detail.

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4.1 Descriptive Analysis

4.1.1 Visitor Profile
As can be seen from Table 4-1, 49.2% of the visitors responding to this survey were male, 51.8% female and both groups were predominantly (76.5%) between the ages of 18 and 39, with about 52.4% in the 18 to 29 age group and another 24.1% in the 30 to 39 group. Only about 13.3% of the respondents were 50 or older. Local visitors were the great majority (72.1%); only 17.8% and 10.1% of respondents came from outside of the city (within the province) and outside the province respectively. Although this seven-day festival had been hosted every year since 2001 and was seen as a city tradition, the majority of the respondents (51.4%) reported that they were first time visitors. As a whole, only about 23.5% of respondents indicated that they had visited the festival more than once (excluding this year). It is not surprising that a great majority (86.1%) of the respondents came to the festival in groups, while 72.7% with their families, relatives or friends. Only 13.9% visited alone. Regarding the group size, the results indicate that most visitors (74.7%) like to attend the festival with more than two companions. Although the numbers of visitors within different groups varied from one to sixteen, the average group size was four. About 43.9% of respondents reported that they came to the festival with two or three companions. Of the total respondents, the average length of stay was between two to three hours, as a great majority (88.7%) stayed less than four hours.

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Table 4-1 Demographic and Visit Traits of the Respondents

Categories Gender Male Female Age group 18-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60 and above Residence Hefei Outside of Hefei within Anhui province Outside of Anhui province Number of past visits One (1st visit) Two Three Four Four and above Visit companionship Family Friend(s)/relative(s) Organized group Other Visit group size (R=1-16, Mean=3.89, s=2.47) One Two Three Four
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%* 49.2 50.8

52.4 24.1 10.2 6.7 6.6 72.1 17.8 10.1

51.4 25.2 16.8 5.5 1.2

38.6 34.0 21.6 6.4

13.9 11.4 20.9 22.9

Five or above Length of stay (hours) (Mode=2, Mean=2.26, s=1.18) One and less Two Three Four Five or over
* percentage of frequency, N=691

30.8

27.6 37.5 23.6 6.8 4.5

4.1.2 Festival Expenditures

Figure 4-1 depicts respondents festival expenditure amounts by category. As could be expected with a food-themed event, the great majority of festival expenditures (89.99%) were on food and beverages. It can be seen that about 65.77% of the total expenditures were on food and beverages consumed at the festival and 24.22% on those taken away. In contrast, spending on non-food items was quite light only 4.70% of the total amount of the festival expenditure on souvenirs and gifts, and 3.87% on entertainment. The lowest proportion was the festival spending on other items, such as donations and cigarettes. In total, these types of spending accounted for 1.44% of the reported festival expenditures.

Details of the festival expenditure patterns can be seen in Table 4-2. Overall, there were very similar percentages of respondents who had any festival expenditure (87.84%) and only had expenditure on food-related items (86.10%), which means almost all respondents with expenditures spent on food and/or beverages during the

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festival. The segment of respondents who consumed food and beverages at the festival was the highest proportion (63.53%) of the festival consumers. Ranking festival consumer numbers by the remaining spending categories has these results: 41.82% (food and beverages taken away from the festival), 10.27% (souvenirs and gifts), 10.56% (entertainment), and 6.08% (other items). Of all the respondents (N=691), the average spending on the festival visit was 39.34; the mean of respondents expenditures on food and beverage consumed on site and taken away was 35.77 and 20.01 respectively. It is notable that the ranges of expenditure on each category were quite wide, particularly for food-related consumption (0.91-200 on food and beverages consumed at the festival and 0.31-110 on the take away).

Notably, around 12.16% of the survey respondents reported that they spent nothing during the festival. By deducting the number of non-purchasing visitors, the average spending of the remaining 607 visitors (87.84% of the total sample) who reported spending on at least one item was 39.34. Apparently, there were gaps between the value of the mean and range of expenditures inclusive of zero (no expenditure) and exclusive of zero, and these types of gap were particularly large for non-food spending because the proportion of these respondents was very small. For example, 10.27% of the total respondents bought souvenirs and/or gifts during the festival;

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Figure 4-1 Distribution of Festival Expenditures by Categories (N=607)

consequently, the mean expenditure of this category was 15.80 when zero expenditure was excluded and 1.62 when zero expenditure was included; the standard deviations were also changed, from 20.45 to 8.09. The existence of zero expenditure, which can significantly change the sample size when measuring the range, mean, and standard deviation of the expenditures, confirmed the need to analyze the studys data with a Tobit model.

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Table 4-2 Description of Per Capita Expenditures at the Festival

Expenditure category Food and beverages consumed on site Food and beverages taken away Souvenirs and gifts Entertainment Other items

%a (N=691) 63.53 41.82 10.27 10.56 6.08

Rb

Mean (s)c (N=607) 35.77(34.43) 20.01(28.68) 15.80(20.45) 12.65(13.36) 8.21(9.39)

Mean (s)c (N=691) 22.73(32.40) 8.37(21.00) 1.62(8.09) 1.34(5.81) 0.50(3.02)

0.91-200.00 0.31-110.00 2.00-95.00 1.33-65.00 1.25-35.00

Food-related items Any items

a

86.10 87.84

1.25-200.00 1.25-200.00

36.11(36.05) 39.34(40.05)

31.10(35.71) 34.56(39.68)

percentage of respondents with expenditure range of expenditure amount mean and standard deviation of per capita expenditure amount

b
c

4.1.3 Motivations for Attending

Table 4-3 summarizes the mean scores and standard deviations of respondents importance rating for their festival motivations. Within the event-related or food-related categories, individual motivators are ranked according their mean values. Overall, the table shows that festival visitors were attracted by a blend of the food experiences available and the festival itself, with slight differences assigned to the importance of one or the other; the mean and standard deviations were 3.44 and 0.95 for the former and 3.49 and 0.97 for the latter. Within the event-related motivation

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category, Relaxation was rated most important (mean=3.75) and Novelty was rated least (mean=3.13). Social and Prestige motivators had the highest (3.89) and the lowest (3.16) mean scores within the food-related motivation category. The highest standard deviation found, which was for event-related Culture, implies that the distribution of the motivators importance rating was more spread out around the mean than that of any other motivator.

A mean score comparison across the two categories shows that the leading motivator for festival attendance was Social, followed by Relaxation, and Family. In other words, two of the top three important motivators were related to food experiences available at the event. Comparing the mean scores for individual motivations in event-related and food-related categories shows that the Social and Family factors were not only among the top three food-related reasons but also the top three event- related reasons for attending the festival. They were ranked as the first (mean=3.89) and second (mean=3.67) importance food-specific motivators as well as the second (mean=3.59) and the third (mean=3.58) event-specific motivators. As for the festivals physical environment, the motivator Physical environment, was rated as the third from top motivator within the food-specific motivation category (mean=3.61). It is interesting that food-related Culture (mean=3.45) and event-related Culture (mean=3.47) were both ranked fourth in importance in their respective categories.

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Table 4-3 Ranked Mean Scores of Individual Motivators

Ranka 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Event-related Motivators Relaxation Social Family Culture Excitement Escape Entertainment Novelty

Mean(s) b 3.75(0.95) 3.59(0.91) 3.58(1.01) 3.47(1.09) 3.46(0.86) 3.34(0.94) 3.20(0.92) 3.13(0.94)

Food-related Motivators Social Family Physical environment Culture Celebration Sensory appeal Knowledge Prestige

Mean(s)b 3.89(1.05) 3.67(1.04) 3.61(0.93) 3.45(0.94) 3.44(0.84) 3.39(1.03) 3.30(0.88) 3.16(1.03)

Total
a

3.44(0.95)

3.49(0.97)

rank of motivation scores, based on a 5-point scale where 1=not at all important, 2=not important, 3=dont know, 4=important, 5=very important mean and standard deviation of motivation scores, N=691

Following the Culture, Excitement (mean=3.46), Escape (mean=3.34), Entertainment (mean=3.20), and Novelty (mean=3.13) factors were ranked in order within the event-related motivation category. The four remaining motivators in the food-specific category were Celebration (mean=3.44), Sensory appeal (mean=3.39), Knowledge (mean=3.30), and Prestige (mean=3.16) in order. Notably the proportion of food-specific and event-specific motivators was in reverse order to the list of the three least important motivational factors for attending the festival (the least three important motivators include two event-related and one food-related factors). Hence, the ranking of individual attendance motivators further demonstrates that food festival visitors were attracted by a blend of the food

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experiences available and the event itself, and the importance rating for food-related motivations is slightly above that of the event-related motivations.

Figure 4-2 depicts the details of visitors responses to eight individual event-related motivators. It can be seen that six out of the total eight motivators (not Entertainment and Novelty) were the most frequently selected by respondents as important reasons for attending. Among these factors, Excitement was the most often (52.3%) ranked important, with 52.3% of the survey participants stating it was important. Not surprisingly, the factor Relaxation, which received the highest mean score in the category of event-related motivators, has the most frequent very important rating while having the lowest not at all important rating. The factor Culture was perceived as not at all important for attending the festival more than any other factor. Novelty, which received the lowest mean score in the event-related motivator category, was most often (119) rated not important. Visitors ratings of eight individual food-related motivational factors is shown in Figure 4-3. Except for Prestige and Knowledge, two factors that received the lowest mean scores within the food-specific motivation category, the remaining six factors all received top rating in important category. Among other factors, Family was perceived as important by over half of the respondents (363). Although the Social factor, which received the highest mean score in the category of food-specific motivators, did not have the highest frequency on important rating, the number of visitors who perceived it as a

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Figure 4-2 Distribution of Reponses to Event-related Motivations*

* frequency of selection, N=691

very important motivator is far more than those who perceived other factors as very important. Sensory appeal was the factor most participants rated not important. Not surprisingly, Prestige, a motivator with the smallest mean score in the food-specific category, was most often judged not at all important. In both categories, the distribution of survey participants responses to each motivator was closely related to the ranking of the motivators mean scores; for example, the two factors that received the lowest two mean scores in each categories (entertainment

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and Novelty in the event-related category and Knowledge and Prestige in the food-related category) both received more neutral ratings than important ones.

Figure 4-3 Distribution of Reponses to Food-related Motivations*

* frequency of selection, N=691

4.1.4 Food Involvement

Table 4-4 summarizes the ranking of respondents scores by FIS subsets and by individual FIS items. The four FIS subsets were ranked in this order: Cooking

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(mean=3.62), Acquisition (mean=3.55), Eating (mean=3.53), Preparing (mean=3.24), according to the mean scores for respective categories. The mean and standard deviations of respondents overall FIS scores were 3.58 and 0.48, which imply that visitors of the CHCF had relatively higher food involvement than general food consumers, when compared to the results of previous studies (e.g., Barker, et al., 2008; Bell & Marshall, 2003).

The ranking shows that Cooking was the most interested FIS subset for the festival visitors, and its two items, Cooking or barbequing is fun and I enjoy cooking for others and myself both had high mean scores (3.62 and 3.61, respectively). Although an Eating item, When I eat out, I think or talk much about how the food tastes, was ranked the top (mean =3.89) of the ten FIS items, the subset Eating was only ranked third out of the four FIS subsets, as two other items of that subset, When I travel, one of the things I anticipate most is eating different food and Talking about what I ate or am going to eat is something I like to do, had very low mean scores (3.32 and 3.26, respectively). The ranking also shows that a Preparing item, I like to mix or chop food, was the most unpopular, and visitors responses to this item were the most diverse. This FIS item had the lowest mean value (3.11) as well as the highest standard deviation (1.03) among the ten FIS items.

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Table 4-4 Ranked Mean Scores of Individual FIS Subsets and Items

Rank a

FIS item by categories

Mean (s)b

I 1 2 II 1 2

Cooking Cooking or Barbequing is fun I enjoy cooking for others and myself Acquisition I do most or all of my own food shopping Compared with other daily decisions, my food choices are very important.

3.62(0.77) 3.62(0.94) 3.61(0.99) 3.55(0.73) 3.61(0.87) 3.49(0.92)

III 1 2 3 4

Eating When I eat out, I think or talk about how the food tastes I think a lot about food each day When I travel, one of the things I anticipate most is eating the food there Talking about what I ate or am going to eat is something I like to do

3.53(0.66) 3.89(0.90) 3.64(0.88) 3.32(1.02) 3.26(1.00)

IV 1 2 Total
a

Preparing I care whether or not a table is nicely set I like to mix or chop food

3.24(0.74) 3.37(0.94) 3.11(1.03) 3.59(0.48)

rank of FIS scores, based on a 5-point scale where 1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=neutral, 4=agree, 5=strongly agree mean and standard deviation of FIS scores, N=691

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4.2 Tobit Regression Analysis

The hypothesized correlations between visitors festival expenditures and motivations and food involvement interest were tested by means of Tobit regression analysis. Table 4-5 shows the results of parameter estimates of the coefficients. The significance of each estimate was tested with the t statistic and corresponding p value at the.05 level.

4.2.1 Relating Total Expenditures to Motivations

For total expenditures, the Tobit analysis results show that no correlations between how much respondents spent during the festival and their scores for motivations (overall, event-related, and food-related). However, further analysis on the sixteen variables within the event-related and food-related categories shows that a number of individual motivators had varying effects on visitors total expenditures. Hence, determining the correlations between total festival expenditures and motivation scores support the studys first hypothesis: H1. Visitors total expenditures at a food festival are correlated to their motivations for attending.

In the event-related motivation category, to see what the festival looks like (t=4.10, p=0.001) and to experience a change of pace from every day life (t=2.7, p=0.01) exerted significant effects on how much respondents spent during the festival, and the

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effects were positive: a one score increase in any of the two motivators was associated with a 8.5 or a 5.2 increase in total expenditures. Culture also had positive effects on total expenditures, but the effects were significant only at the 0.10 level. Two other event-related motivators, however, were significantly negatively related to festival expenditures: a one score increase in to get together with friends/relatives (t=-3.19, p=0.001) or to participate in the festival activities (t=-2.87, p=0.004) was associated with a 7.1 or a 5.4 decrease in total expenses. Within the food-related motivation category, Sensory appeal (t=2.00, p=0.046) had significantly positively effects on festival expenses whereas family (t=-3.33, p=0.001) and food culture (t=-2.41, p=0.016) related negatively to expenses.

4.2.2 Relating Food-related Expenditures to Motivations

The studys second hypothesis was proposed to address the relation between visitors food-related expenditures at the festival and motivation scores: H2. Food festival attendees expenditures on food or food-related items at the festival are correlated to their motivations for attending. As can be seen in Table 4-5, respondents scores of motivations overall, event-related, and food-related had no significant effects on their food and/or beverage expenditures at the festival. However, further analysis of the sixteen individual motivators reveals that some motivators significantly affected the food-related expenditures. The hypothesis is, thus, supported by the findings.

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Table 4-5 Results of Tobit Model Estimates

Variablea

Total Expenditure Coef. t

.55 -1.08 -.46 4.10* 1.79 -.04 2.70* -.26 -3.19* -2.87* -1.10 .78 2.00* -.99 -2.41* -3.33* 1.81 1.36 1.25 -3.54*

Food-related Expenditure p Coef.

1.089 -373.739 -1.444 8.394 2.037 .706 4.187 -.220 -5.730618 -4.808 -380.088 .450 3.018 -2.735 -5.879 -7.023 5.751 2.377 2.989 -8.494

t
.31 -1.60 -.71 4.42* 1.22 .40 2.38* -.12 -2.79* -2.76* -1.63 .21 1.63 -1.17 -2.84* -3.74* 2.86* 1.19 1.82 -2.34*

p
.754 .110 .477 .000 .224 .687 .018 .907 .005 .006 .105 .837 .103 .241 .005 .000 .004 .235 .069 .020

Overall Motivations
Event-related motivations Excitement Novelty Culture Relaxation Escape Family Social Entertainment Food-related motivations Celebration Sensory appeal Knowledge Culture Family Social Physical environment Prestige

2.075 -275.192 -1.016 8.492 3.278 -.86 5.180 -.530 -7.123 -5.433 -280.290 1.84 4.021 -2.507 -5.443 -6.811 3.940 2.952 2.233 -13.947

.582 .279 .646 .000 .074 .964 .007 .795 .001 .004 .271 .438 .046 .324 .016 .001 .071 .175 .212 .000

Overall Food Involvement

Acquisition Food choice

-.939 -1.153

-.37 -.56

.713 .574

-.793 -1.311

-.34 -.70

.735 .486

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Food shopping Preparing Food processing Food presentation Cooking Cooking delight Cooking practice Eating Taste judging Food preoccupation Food discussion Exotic food experiences

2.265 -2.654 -2.455 -3.752 1.594 9.136 -4.972 -10.928 -2.291 -3.517 .081 -6.937

1.00 -1.05 -1.34 -1.97 .65 4.45* -2.77* -3.96* -1.09 -1.76 .04 -3.39*

.316 .293 .18 .50 .516 .000 .006 .000 .278 .078 .968 .001

3.180 -.452 -1.293 -2.667 2.395 8.377 -3.969 -8.626 -1.613 -2.884 -.107 -5.941

1.53 -.19 -.77 -1.52 1.06 4.42* -2.41* -3.40* -.83 -1.57 -.06 -3.17*

.126 .846 .443 .128 .292 .000 .016 .001 .406 .118 .954 .002

* statistically significant at the.05 level (2-tailed)

a

see Table 3-2 for reference categories.

Not surprisingly, Novelty (t=4.42, p=.000) and Escape (t=2.38, p=.018), which had significant positive effects on respondents total expenditures, were significantly positively related to food-related expenditures. A one score increase in novelty was associated with a 8.4 increase, and a one score increase in Escape results in a 4.2 increase in food-related festival spending. Two other event-related motivators that had negative effects on the total festival expenditures, Social (t=-2.79, p=.005) and Entertainment (t=-2.76, p=.006), also had significantly negative effects on food-related expenditures. Among the eight food-specific motivators, Social (t=2.86, p=.004) had significant positive effects on respondents food and/or beverage expenses, whereas Family (t=-3.74, p=.000) and Food culture (t=-2.84, p=.005) had significantly negative effects.
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4.2.3 Relating Festival Expenditures to Food Involvement

Analysis of the correlations between visitors festival expenditures and food involvement is shaped by the following hypotheses: H3. Visitors total expenditures at a food festival are correlated to their food involvement levels. H4. Food festival visitors expenditures on food or food-related items at the festival are correlated to their food involvement levels.

Again, the hypotheses are supported by the Tobit analysis findings. As can be seen in Table 4-5, visitors overall FIS scores had significantly negative effects on their total (t=-3.54, p=.000) and food-related expenditures (t=-2.34, p=.02). That is, those who had higher FIS scores actually spent less during the festival. The most significant contributor to the negative correlations was the category Eating (t=-3.96, p=.000 for the total; t=-3.4, p=.001 for the food-related), which reflected festival visitors interests in eating. For a one score increase in the subset Eating, 10.9 or 8.6 less

was spent on the total or the food-related category. The factor Exotic food experience (When I travel, one of the things I anticipate most is eating different food) had significantly negative impacts on both total (t=-3.39, p=.001) and food-related expenditure (t=-3.17, p=.002) categories. Thus, the more visitors expected to eat the indigenous food of their travel destinations, the less they spent on the CHCF. For a one score increase in Exotic food experience, there was a 6.9 decrease in visitors total expenditures or a 5.9 decrease in the food-related category. The factor

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Cooking practice (I enjoy cooking for others and myself) (t=-2.77, p=.006 for the total; t=-2.41, p=.016 for the food-related) was another significant contributor that reduced the size of festival expenditures.

Although negative correlations were found between respondents overall FIS scores, individual FIS subsets, and individual FIS items and festival expenditures, a positive correlation could be seen between the item Cooking delight (cooking or barbequing is fun) and expenditures. Surprisingly, among the sixteen motivators and ten FIS items investigated in the current study, the factor Cooking delight had both the most powerful positive effect on total festival expenditures (t=4.45, p=.000) as well as the next most powerful, on food-related expenditures (t=4.42, p=.000). The estimated coefficients indicate that a one score increase in Cooking delight was associated with a 9.1 increase in total expenses or a 8.4 increase in the food-related expenses of survey respondents.

4.3 T-tests Analysis

The studys t-tests procedure consists of two steps. First, paired t-tests were conducted to compare the highly and low food-involved respondents festival motivations in order to verify the studys last two hypotheses. Survey respondents were broken down into two distinct groups by the ranking of their FIS scores (overall, four subsets, and ten items respectively). Those in the higher half of the ranking were categorized into

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the high-FS group, and those in the lower half, into the low-FS group. Based on the studys sample size (N=691), respondents were finally grouped unevenly, with 345 in the high-score group and the remaining 346 in the low-score group. The two groups scores on event-related and food related motivations were then compared (at the.05 level) to see whether respondents in the high-FS group attended the festival with higher food-related motivations than event-related motivations, and whether respondents in the low-FS group were primarily motivated to attend the festival by event-related motivations.

Second, independent sample testing was conducted to compare the festivals heavy spenders and light spenders characteristics. Although the relation between the visitors festival spending and their demographic and visit traits were beyond the scope of the studys conceptual model, to gain a wider understanding of the food festival market, this study extended investigation to this aspect based on empirical data about the visitors demographic and visit traits. Respondents were divided into two groups based on their total festival expenditures. Those in the higher half of the expenditure ranking were categorized into the high-TE group, and those in the lower half were defined as the low-TE group. Based on the studys sample size (N=691), the two segments included 345 and 346 respondents respectively. Subsequently, the two segments were compared by their mean expenditures on the five spending categories and their demographic and visitor characteristics.

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4.3.1 Differentiating Involvement

Food-related

Motivations

by

Food

Table 4-6 shows the differences between the high-FS group and low-FS groups mean motivation scores. Clearly, respondents with greater overall food involvement reported higher scores on food-related motivations (mean=3.74) than event-related motivations (mean=3.62), and the difference was significant (t=4.67, p=.000). This finding gives empirical support to the studys fifth hypothesis: H5 Visitors who score high in the Food Involvement Scale are likely motivated to attend by food-related factors.

Based on the reported scores of the four FIS subsets (Cooking, Acquisition, Eating, Preparing) as well as the ten FIS items, further analysis was undertaken to examine the relation between respondents food involvement levels and festival motivations (food-related and event-related). The findings from the paired t-tests illustrate that the mean scores of any of the four FIS subsets were always higher on the food-related motivations than the event-related motivations, and the differences were significant. Table 4-7 further depicts that the mean scores of any of the ten FIS items were significantly higher (at the.05 level) on food-related motivations than event-related motivations, except for the visitors who are highly interested in Test judging, which had significantly higher (t=-1.71, p=.089) mean scores (3.62) on

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Table 4-6 High- and Low-FS Groups Event- and Food-related Motivations (1)

High-FS groupb
Event-related motivations
a

Low-FS groupc
Event-related motivations 3.26(0.60)
a

Food-related motivations 3.74(0.45)

a

Food-related motivationsa 3.24(0.62)

Overall Food Involvement t p Acquisition Mean(s)d t p Preparation Mean(s)d t p Cooking Mean(s)d t p Eating Mean(s)d t p
a

Mean(s)d

3.62(0.39)

-4.67* .000 3.55(0.53) -2.51* .012 3.55(0.50) -3.65* .000 3.59(0.43) -3.15* .002 3.57(0.43) -4.35* .000 3.70(0.50) 3.68(0.51) 3.64(0.51) 3.61(0.57)

.90 .371 3.34(0.52) -1.12 .263 3.34(0.55) -.32 .752 3.29(0.59) -.59 .554 3.31(0.60) .88 .378 3.29(0.61) 3.31(0.61) 3.34(0.64) 3.37(0.60)

* statistically significant at the.05 level (2-tailed) based on a 5-point scale where 1=not at all important, 2=not very important, 3=dont know, 4=important, 5=very important.
b c d

defined according to the ranking of the Mean scores of overall FIS and four FIS subsets, N=345 defined according to the ranking of the Mean scores of overall FIS and four FIS subsets,, N=346 mean and standard deviations of motivation scores

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Table 4-7 High- and Low-FS Groups Event- and Food-related Motivations (2)

High-FS group b
Event-related motivations
a

Low-FS groupc
Event-related motivations 3.32(0.57) -1.57 .118 3.40(0.51) -.42 .676 3.40(0.56) .24 .810 3.35(0.56) -1.35 .180 3.34(0.56) -.79 .428 3.34(0.59) -.44 .663 3.35(0.61) -1.71 .089 3.35(0.59) -1.56 .120 3.41(0.53) 2.10* .036 3.35(0.56) -1.26 .210
a

Food-related motivations 3.62(0.57)

a

Food-related motivations 3.36(0.59)

a

Food choice

Food shopping

Mean(s)d t p Mean(s) t p Mean(s) t p Mean(s) t p Mean(s) t p Mean(s) t p Mean(s) t p Mean(s) t p Mean(s)

3.56(0.47) -2.05* .042 3.48(0.56) -3.32* .001 3.48(0.51) -4.09* .000 3.54(0.49) -2.36* .019 3.55(0.49) -3.04* .003 3.54(0.45) -3.30* .001 3.54(0.43) -1.89 .060 3.54(0.46) -2.02* .045 3.47(0.54) -5.83* .000 3.54(0.49) -2.35* .020

3.57(0.56)

3.42(0.62)

Food processing

3.59(0.55)

3.39(0.62)

Food presentation

3.60(0.51)

3.39(0.65)

Cooking delight

3.62(0.56)

3.36(0.60)

Cooking practice

3.63(0.52)

3.35(0.64)

Test judging

3.59(0.54)

3.39(0.63)

Food preoccupation

3.60(0.56)

3.39(0.61)

Food discussion

3.63(0.57)

3.35(0.59)

t p Exotic food Mean(s) experiences t p

a

3.60(0.59)

3.38(0.58)

* statistically significant at the.05 level (2-tailed) based on a 5-point scale where 1=not at all important, 2=not very important, 3=dont know, 4=important, 5=very important. 118

b c d

defined according to the ranking of the Mean scores of the ten FIS items, N=345 defined according to the ranking of the Mean scores of the ten FIS items, N=346 mean and standard deviations of motivation scores

the food-related than on the event related motivations (3.57). These findings imply that in addition to those who reported high scores on the item I think a lot about food each day, respondents who had more interest in food attended the festival with more food-related motivations than event-related ones, in comparison to those who had less interest in food.

4.3.2 Differentiating Involvement

Event-related

Motivations

by

Food

The last hypothesis used to guide the t-tests analysis is

H6 Visitors who score low on the Food Involvement Scale are likely motivated
by event-related factors. As can be seen from Table 4-6, visitors who reported less interest in food had slightly higher event-related scores (mean=3.26) than food-related (mean=3.24) ones. However, results of the t-tests indicate that the two mean values of the low-FS-group were not significantly different (t=.90, p=.371).

To compare the motivation scores of the low food-involved groups based on respondents responses to the four FIS subsets, paired t-tests were further conducted (Table 4-6). Although the paired groups mean scores show that respondents with low interest in Acquisition and Eating reported slightly higher scores on event-related

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(mean=3.30 and 3.29) than food related motivations (mean=3.29 and 3.27), whereas those who in low-score group of Cooking and Preparing reported slightly higher scores on food-related (mean=3.29 and 3.33, respectively) than event-related (mean=3.28 and 3.32 respectively), the t-tests results firmly verified that there were no significant differences between the mean motivation scores of the four low-score groups (based on the scores for Cooking, Acquisition, Eating, and Preparing, respectively).

With respect to the low-score-groups for different individual FIS items, differences between their event-related and food-related motivations were illustrated in Table 4-7. Among the ten low-score-groups, only those who reported low scores on Talking about what I ate or am going to eat is something I like to do had significantly higher mean values (t=2.10, p=.036) on their event-related (mean=3.41) than on their food-related motivations (mean=3.35). There were no significant differences between the remaining nine low-score groups event-related and food-related motivation scores. Thus, the t-tests analysis results could not thoroughly support the studys sixth hypothesis, as respondents who had lower food involvement scores were primarily motivated to attend the festival by a blend of food experiences and event experiences available at the festival.

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4.3.3 Differentiating Festival Spending by Food Involvement

Given the significant differences between the highly and low food-involved segments motivations for attending, independent samples test were conducted to enquire about the two segments festival expenses on foods and/or beverages.

Table 4-8 High- and Low-FS groups Festival Expenditures

Mean(s)c Total expenditure High-FS groupa Low-FS groupb Food-related expenditure High-FS group Low-FS group Food and beverages consumed at the festival High-FS group Low-FS group Food and beverage taken away High-FS group Low-FS group Souvenirs and gifts High-FS group Low-FS group Entertainment High-FS group Low-FS group Other items High-FS group Low-FS group
* statistically significant at the.05 level (2-tailed)
a b C

t
2.89*

Sig. (2-tailed)
.004

30.21(34.71) 38.89(43.69) 2.97* 27.08(29.67) 35.11(40.49) 4.03* 17.81(24.97) 27.63(37.80) 1.13 9.27(22.81) 7.47(19.01) -1.34 1.21(6.33) 2.03(9.52) .83 1.52(6.46) 1.15(5.08) -.86 0.40(2.99) 0.60(3.04) .388 .405 .182 .261 .000 .003

defined according to the ranking of the Mean scores of the overall FIS scores, N=345 defined according to the ranking of the Mean scores of the overall FIS scores, N=346 mean and standard deviations of per capita expenditures

Table 4-8 reveals that respondents with greater food involvement spent significantly less (t=-2.97, p=.003) on food/beverages (mean=27.08) than those with lower food

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Table 4-9 Heavy- and Light-TE Groups Spending by Categories

Mean(s)c Total expenditure Heavy-TE-group a Light-TE-group b Food-related expenditure Heavy-TE-group Light-TE-group Food and beverages consumed at festival Heavy-TE-group Light-TE-group Food and beverages taken away Heavy-TE-group Light-TE-group Souvenirs and gifts Heavy-TE-group Light-TE-group Entertainment Heavy-TE-group Light-TE-group Other items Heavy-TE-group Light-TE-group
* statistically significant at the.05 level (2-tailed)
a b c

t
23.08*

Sig. (2-tailed)
.000

60.77(41.72) 8.41(6.34) 22.13* 54.13(38.13) 8.13(6.42) 17.56* 40.76(37.60) 4.75(6.33) 6.44* 13.37(28.48) 3.38(4.79) 5.06* 3.16(11.20) 0.10(1.13) 5.31* 2.49(7.99) 0.19(1.13) 4.42* 1.00(4.21) .00(.00) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

defined according to the ranking of the Mean value of per capita total expenditures, N=345 defined according to the ranking of the Mean value of per capita total expenditures, N=346 mean and standard deviations of per capita expenditures

involvement (mean=35.11). Similarly, the t-tests results reveal that the high-FS group spent significantly less (mean = 30.21) than the low-FS group (mean = 38.89) in total (t=-2.98, p=.004).

Moreover, the high-FS group had smaller mean expenses (17.81) than the low-FS group (27.63), in regard to the major expenditure category, food and beverages consumed at the festival, and the difference was significant (t=-4.03, p=.000). With
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respect to the remaining four expenditure categories, no significant differences were found between the two segments. The findings identified the differences between the two segments food-related expenditures and, thus, confirmed the previous findings from Tobit regression analysis that respondents festival expenditures were negatively correlated to their food involvement levels.

4.3.4 Differentiating Expenditures

Demographic

and

Visit

Traits

by

To gain a wider understanding of factors that may affect visitors food festival spending, independent sample testing was extended to the differences between the festivals heavy spenders and light spenders with respect to their demographic and visit traits. Respondents were divided into two groups based on their total expenditures during the CHCF. Those in the higher half of the total expenditure ranking were categorized into the heavy-TE group, and those in the lower half were defined as the light-TE group. Based on the studys sample size (N=691), the two segments included 345 and 346 respondents respectively. Table 4-9 shows that there was a large gap between the mean of the heavy spenders total expenditure (60.77) and the mean of the light spenders (8.41)(t=23.08, p=.000) and, for all five spending categories, the two segments differed significantly.

The demographic and visit characteristics of the heavy and light total expenditure groups were compared at the.05 level to determine the differences. As can be seen

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from Table 4-10, the two expenditure groups were statistically significantly different from each other in regard to age: the order the visitor, the higher the expenditure. The two expenditure groups gender compositions also differed significantly: more females than males spent heavily. In addition, the outside visitors spent significantly more than the local visitors. The results, therefore, revealed significant demographic differences.

Table 4-10 Heavy- and Light-TE Groups Demographic and Visit Traits

Mean(s)c Age group Heavy-TE groupa Light-TE group Gender Heavy-TE group Light-TE group Residence Heavy-TE group Light-TE group Number of past visit Heavy-TE group Light-TE group Visit group size Heavy-TE group Light-TE group Number of Family members in visit group Heavy-TE group Light-TE group Number of Friends/relatives in
0.90(1.60) 1.41(2.14) 3.57(2.21) 4.43(2.64) 1.99(1.09) 1.60(0.82) 1.69(0.93) 1.11(0.42) 1.55(0.50) 1.47(0.50)
b

t
5.65*

Sig. (2-tailed)
.000

1.58(0.99) 1.24(0.49) 2.10* .036

3.77*

.000

5.32*

.000

-4.66*

.000

-3.58*

.000

.07

.943

124

visit group Heavy-TE group Light-TE group Number of companions in organized group Heavy-TE group Light-TE group Number of other types of
0.46(1.20) 0.85(1.67) -.49 .624 1.01(1.60) 1.00(1.61) -3.54* .000

companions Heavy-TE group Light-TE group Length of stay (hours) Heavy-TE group Light-TE group
* statistically significant at the.05 level (2-tailed)
a b C

0.20(0.76) 0.16(1.10) 6.03* 2.53(1.16) 2.00(1.15) .000

defined according to the ranking of the Mean value of per capita total expenditures, N=345 defined according to the ranking of the Mean value of per capita total expenditures, N=346 mean and standard deviations of the distribution of the responses (see Table 4-1 for reference scales)

In terms of visit traits, differences were found between the two segments number of past visits, group size, number of family members in visit group, attendance as organized group (school, work, tour group, etc.), and length of stay. As Table 4-10 shows, heavy spenders had more past visits and came in smaller sized parties. While attending the festival with companions, respondents in the high-expenditure group were less likely to be with family members or in organized groups. The average stay at the festival was 2.53 hours for the high-expenditure group and 2 hours for the low-expenditure group, and statistical differences were detected between the two groups. In other words, the longer the visitor stayed, the more they spent.

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4.4 The Modified Conceptual Model

Overall, the result of empirical analysis revealed that in a food festival context, the patterns of visitors spending are associated with certain motivators of festival attendance and the visitors food involvement traits. Notably, however, the relationships among these variables are extremely complex, and the findings in regard to the expenditure determinants are not entirely in line with previous studies. The quantitative findings reveal that the correlations between the visitors festival expenditures and their overall festival motivations and food involvement levels do not always coincide with the correlations between the expenditures and a number of specific motivators and food involvement traits. The conceptual model proposed in the preceding chapter was extensively modified for two main reasons: 1) it only generally described the possible associations among the festival visitors expenditures and their overall event-related and food-related motivations for attending and food involvement levels and, 2) the six hypotheses that constructed the model were not thoroughly supported by the studys empirical findings. To facilitate drawing conclusions about the current studys key findings, the old model was modified as follows:

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Figure 4-4 The Modified Conceptual Model

The adapted model describes the food festival expenditure determinants related to festival motivations and food involvement and, in particular, the positive and negative correlations among the expenditures (both the total and food-related) and a number of specific motivators and food involvement traits. The determinants are categorized into three sections: food-related motivators (i.e., Social, Sensory Appeal, Culture, and Family); event-related motivators (i.e., Social, Entertainment, Novelty, and Escape) and; food involvement traits (i.e., Cooking delight, Cooking practice, and Exotic food experiences). As the predominant festival spending was on food and beverages, all the determinants correlated to the total expenditures were also correlated to the food-related festival expenditures, except the food-related motivator Social (correlated to the food-related spending only) and Sensory appeal (correlated to the

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total expenses only). It should be noted, however, the model describes the correlations based upon the results of Tobit regression analysis and t-tests, and the significance of the correlates was tested at the p .05 level. Consequently, it is possible that a number of factors with slightly bigger p values, such as the FIS trait food presentation (t=-1.97, p=.05), were excluded from the presently model. For this reason, this conceptual model cannot thoroughly present the correlations between visitor spending and their festival motivations and food involvement. Arguably, the model can be further modifiable as new data emerge from literature or further research.

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CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION
This chapter discusses the findings of the current study in relation to the literature pertaining to events and festivals, culinary tourism, and food consumption. The five research questions of the study are reviewed in order to initiate the discussion. After answering the research questions, the discussion is extended to address theoretical and practical implications of the current study, to reflect upon limitations that may have affected the research findings, and to present recommendations for future research. The significance of conducting empirical study on the food festival market is reflected in the context of prior knowledge. Arguably, these discussions are potentially useful for a better understanding of food festivals and events as an instrument for boosting local leisure and food-related economies.

5.1 Responses to the Research Questions

From structuring the conceptual model to designing a survey instrument, the five research questions raised at the very beginning of the dissertation have served as a guiding framework to the current study. In this chapter, the results of statistical analysis presented in the preceding chapter provide empirical support to answer these questions and shape discussion of the research findings.

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5.1.1 The Food Festival Visitors

Gaining insights into visitors characteristics is vital for understanding the nature of the food festival market. The descriptive analysis of the studys survey results has profiled the CHCF visitors and addressed the first research question: What are food festival visitors characteristics with respect to their festival expenditures, motivations for attending, food involvement levels, and demographic and visit traits? The empirical data collected from the visitor survey has provided general description about the CHCF visitors age, gender, residence, and visit patterns. The findings illustrate that visitors who participated in the survey were typically young locals and slightly more females than males. The majority were local residents who came to the festival in a group with two or three family members or relatives/friends. Generally, the festival drew more first-time visitors than repeat visitors; a large quantity of the visitors spent less than four hours at the festival.

Overall, the gender distribution of the study sample (consisting of 49.2% male and 50.8% female respondents) is reasonably representative of the Chinese population. According to the nations latest National Population Sample Survey (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2006), the Chinese population (N=1,306,280,000) is 51.5% male and 48.5% female. The finding that female respondents outnumbered males at the festival is consistent with many past studies on various community festivals with a local food/culture theme, for example, Kim et al.s (2010b) research at

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the 15th Gwangju Kimchi in Gwangju, South Korea and Cela et al.s (2007) visitor study on eleven food festivals taking place in Northeast Iowa, USA. Previous studies (e.g., Cai, et. al., 2005; Ignatov & Smith, 2006) on culinary tourism and wine festivals also noted that food tourists or wine festival attendees are more likely to be female. In addition, this gender distribution is in line with many past findings on cultural festivals, such as Crompton and McKays (1997) study at sixteen non-sporting events (including food-oriented events, musical events, parades/carnivals, pageants/balls, and museums/exhibits/shows) of Fiesta San Antonio, in the US, and Nicholson and Pearces (2000) research on visitors to four South Island events in New Zealand (including two culinary-oriented festivals, an air show, and a country music festival). According to Getz (1991), arts and cultural events attract more females, while males are attracted to sports and entertainment events. Thus, the gender distribution of the food festival visitors can be understood within both the cultural festival and food tourism contexts.

The findings about the festival attendees age and visit traits support some of the previous research on community festival attendees and culinary tourists. Nicholson and Pearces (2000) comparative study on four different community festivals in New Zealand reveals that group participation dominated at all four events, and the two food-themed events appear to have attracted considerably more young people (aged 20-30), who came in groups of four friends or family members, than the other two events. Also, by comparing demographic traits of the visitors at a food festival and a

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national heritage area in the same region, Cela, et. al. (2007) found that local food festival attendees were younger than the heritage festival visitors. Although, traditionally, wine is a lifestyle activity normally pursued by the older, some recent studies on wine festivals have addressed the increasingly expanding proportion of young wine-festival attendees; for example, Cai, et. al. (2005) reported that of the visitors at the 2003 Vintage Indiana Wine and Food Festival in the US, a total of 74.1% were less than 50 years old; Tassiopoulos, Nuntsu, and Haydam (2004) noticed that almost 60% of South African wine tourists were younger than 35 years old. In addition, more researchers have noted the demographic change in Australian and New Zealand wine markets and addressed the needs to investigate the preferences of younger wine consumers (Fountain & Charters, 2004; Levine, 2004; Mitchell, Hall, & McIntosh, 2000). In the present study, 76.5% of CHCF visitors were younger than 39 years. This phenomenon may indicate that the festivals theme and activities appealed more to the young than the old. However, the results also show that the majority of the festival attendees were first-time visitors, who stayed at the festival less than three hours, implying that these young visitors may come to the festival out of curiosity.

The visitors festival expenditures were categorized as on-site food/beverage consumption, food/beverage taken away, souvenirs and gifts, entertainment, and others in the current study. Given that the 9th CHCF is a food-themed festival with free admission for all the events, and the majority of the attendees were locals who spent two or three hours at the festival, it is not surprising that the predominant

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festival spending (90%) is on food and beverages: Food and beverages consumed on site made up the biggest component (65.8%) of the total expenditures, and Food and Beverage taken away from the festival the second biggest (24.22%). Although the portion of food-related expenditures was relatively higher at the 9th CHCF, when compared to the results of previous expenditure research on other culinary festivals (e. g., Cela et al., 2008; Kim et al., 2010a), the finding thoroughly supports Chhabra et al.s (2003) theory that the greatest (economic) impact from one-day festivals comes from food and beverage expenditures. The reasons that spending on non-food items was quite light only 4.7% and 3.87% of the total expenditures were allocated on souvenirs/gifts and entertainment respectively were possibly related to the festivals insufficient supply of non-food products and entertainment programs that were chargeable to the visitors.

The basic assumption of the studys motivation measurement is that visitors were attracted to the CHCF for multiple reasons, both event-related and food-related. In addition to using a list of sixteen motivational statements preselected from previous research in the area of festival motivations to measure the importance of each motivator for visitors, the survey questionnaire included an open-ended question allowing respondents to report other important reasons for attending. This approach recorded a number of interesting reasons not covered in the motivation statements, such as that the festival was very close to home and that coupons were available for sampling food. Although those additional motivators were ultimately ignored due to

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the very low rate of response (less than 0.7% of the sample answered the open-ended question), this result may partially support a major assumption of the present study that the sixteen motivational statements were representative and capable of providing the key insights into why people attend food festivals.

Overall, respondents were attracted to the festival by a synergy of food experiences available at the event and the event itself, as the reported mean score of the food-related motivations (3.49) only narrowly exceeded that of the event-related one (3.44). The range of the mean scores across the sixteen motivational items varied from 3.13 to 3.89, suggesting that while all the reasons are important, multiple motivations come into play. Ranking and mean score comparison across the two motivation categories reveal that the interpersonal motivations, including Social and Family motivators, were the top two in the food-related category and also ranked the second and third most important in the event-related category. These findings support the assertion made by Fields (2002) that food and drinks are means to increase and ease social interactions; also among people who did not know each other before. [] Events based on food and eating give the excuse to come together and socialize and to create a feeling of community (p.39), and, are generally consistent with those of past food festival research (e.g., Cela et al., 2008; Nicholson & Pearce, 2000; Uysal et al., 1993). Based on an extensive literature review on recently published festival motivation studies as a whole, Li and Petrick (2006) note that the top five answers pertained to whatever the theme was of each particular event, all

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included reasons that related to family and friends. Thus, they conclude that while socialization amongst family and friends was important across all events, the remaining motivations varied based on the type of event. In the present study, the response known-group social motivation was rated high in both event-related and food-related categories, which may be explained by the festival attendees profiles with respects to age and residency. Statistical evidence has shown that within the same festival settings, local visitors were more motivated by the socialization factor than were non-local visitors (Formica & Uysal, 1996), and compared with other event goers, younger event-goers were more likely motivated by known-group socialization to attend cultural festivals (Faulkner et al., 1999).

In addition to the event- and food-related Social and Family, the top three most important motivators in the two categories included the even-related Relaxation and food-related Physical environment respectively. Apparently, the festival provides an important venue to visitors wanting to reduce the tension and anxieties of routine and to have food experiences differing from everyday life. The visitors responses to the food-related reason Physical environment confirms the findings of past research on food consumption that customers are likely to spend their time and money in an establishment where the service environment prompts a feeling of pleasure (Yuksel & Yuksel, 2003; p.54), and identical foods perform differently in different surroundings (Kim, Eves, & Scarles, 2009; p.428). Cultural elements, both the event-related and food-related, were ranked fourth in importance within their

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respective categories possibly because the cultural component associated with the CHCF and local crawfish was not very strong but still appealed to the visitors.

In terms of the event-related motivator to see what the festival looks like, the visitors responses did not thoroughly support previous findings of food or cultural festival research. For example, based on a study on sixteen non-sporting events at Fiesta San Antonio, Crompton and Mckay (1997) assert that visitors who attend food events were significantly more likely to be motivated by novelty than those who attend other events. Indeed, the desire to experience novelty has been identified as a salient dimension of event motivations by many other festival and event researchers (Backman, Backman, Uysal, & Sunshine, 1995; Crompton, 1979; Crompton & McKay, 1997; Chang, 2005; Scott, 1996; Schneider & Backman, 1996; Formica & Uysal, 1996, 1998; Lee 2000; Uysal et al., 1993, etc.). The visitors relatively low interest in seeing what the festival looks like can be explained by the great majority of the CHCF attendees being local; thus, they did not greatly expect to experience something new at the CHCF a yearly local festival, now in its ninth year. However, this may also imply that the festival programs and products were not creative or unique and, consequently, were not very important pull factor of the festival. Similarly, the relatively low importance scores received by the event-related Entertainment and the food-related Knowledge and Prestige confirmed that a great scope for further development of the festival programs and products remains.

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With respect to food involvement, the overall mean value of FIS scores (3.59) and the range of the mean scores across the ten FIS items (R = 3.11-3.89) indicated that the CHCF visitors were relatively more highly involved with food than general food consumers, when compared to the results of previous studies (e.g., Bell & Marshall, 2003; Ritchey, Frank, Hursti, & Tuorila, 2010). This finding is in line with the results of previous food involvement research related to food festivals that visitors taking part in food events and festivals have a tendency towards being more highly involved with food (Arvola et al., 1999; Chen, 2007; Cohen & Avieli, 2004; Kim et al., 2010b; Pliner & Hobden, 1992; Tuorila et al., 1994, 2001), and more highly food-involved individuals are usually more sensation seeking and inclined toward new food experiences (Pliner & Hobden, 1993; Zuckerman, 1979) than low food-involved individuals are. Ranking and mean score comparison across the four food involvement subsets revealed that Cooking ranked as the most interested FIS subset, followed by the Acquisition. The reasons that the festival appealed to those who are interested in cooking and food selection may relate to the festival activities: crawfish exhibitions, crawfish eating contests, and cookery shows were capable of catering to this segments predilection to learn more about cooking skills and food variety.

5.1.2 Motivations as Expenditures Correlates

One of the studys primary objectives was to examine the relationship between food festival visitors spending patterns and their motivations for attending. As the basic assumption of the studys motivation measurement is that visitors were attracted to
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food festivals for multiple reasons related to the food experience available and the event itself, two lines of thought were developed to examine whether the visitors food-related and event-related motivations affected their festival expenditures. The results of relating sixteen motivators, event-related and food-related, to the patterns of spending provided empirical evidence to answer the second research question: Do visitors motivations for attending a food festival influence their spending patterns at the festival?

No correlations were found between how much the visitors spent and their scores on overall festival motivations or the overall event-related or food related ones, but the expenditures significantly correlate to the scores of a number of individual motivators. Among the eight event-related motivators, Novelty and Escape were the positive correlates, while Social and Entertainment were the negative. The remaining four factors, which were also important reasons for festival attendance, had no correlations with the expenditures. Due to the dominant portion of food/beverage expenditures in the total festival spending, the eight individual event-related motivators had very similar correlations with visitors food-related festival expenditures.

The positive association between visitors curiosity about the festival and their expenditures may imply that, in comparison to other people, the visitors who seek new or different experiences tend to spend more at the festival. This finding is consistent with those of past researchers (e.g., Backman et al., 1995; Crompton, 1979;

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Crompton & McKay, 1997; Chang, 2005; Scott, 1996; Schneider & Backman, 1996; Formica & Uysal, 1996, 1998; Lee, 2000; Uysal et al., 1993) in that have identified the desire for experiencing novelty as a salient reason for festival and/or event consumption. It is also reasonable that the factor Escape had a significantly positive correlation with festival consumption, as visitors who attended the festival to experience a change of pace from everyday life usually stay longer and, consequently, spend more. Notably, however, ranking of the eight event-related motivators importance has shown that both Novelty and Escape were rated fairly low. This finding suggests that, to enhance the festivals economic performance, more marketing efforts were needed to promote the festivals fun theme and joyous atmosphere, which are different from peoples everyday life, in order to attract those who seek surprise, adventure, and alleviation of boredom.

The findings that the Social and Entertainment motivators had negative relations with the expenditures suggest two possibilities. First, visitors who regarded festival attendance as an opportunity for getting together with friends/relatives were peoplerather than festival-oriented, and those who came for entertainment were attracted by the festivals fun atmosphere; therefore, the visitors in these two segments more likely attended the festival as mere spectators or casual visitors making minimal commitment. Second, consideration should be given to the festivals provision of programs and products. The majority of the festivals entertainment programs, such as the concert and eating competition, were free of charge; therefore, it is possible that

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the visitors may have satisfied their Social and Entertainment needs by participating only in those free festival activities and visiting with their companions.

In terms of the food-related motivations, the results of Tobit regression analysis suggest that Sensory appeal was a positive correlate of both total and food-related expenses, and Social was positively related to food-related spending. The former finding may be explained by Fieldss (2002) assumption that the taste of food plays not only a central part in attracting potential visitors to a destination but also becomes the ideal symbol of visit consumption. The later finding confirmed that eating out is a valuable sociability function of food, and participating in food festivals can give opportunities to enjoy something together and create a feeling of unity (Warde & Martens, 2000). As Smith (1975) pointed out, "The central function of this type of festival seems to be to give occasion to rejoice together; they [participants] have had pleasure in each other's company" (p. 67). Apparently, attending food festivals can satisfy visitors needs for pleasurable experiences not only by allowing them to indulge in the aroma, taste, texture, and appearance of various crawfish presented at the festivals, but also to meet and communicate with one another to enjoy food together. The findings that food-related motivators Family and Culture had negative correlations, and Physical environment, Celebration, Knowledge and Prestige had no correlations with the expenditures may imply that the visitors represented in these segments can be satisfied by experiencing the event rather than by consuming; for example, they may come to the festival just to attend cookery

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competitions and crawfish exhibitions together with family members.

5.1.3 Food Involvement Traits as Expenditures Correlates

Rooted in the theoretical foundation of food consumption study, the current study has enhanced the existing knowledge that the levels of food involvement likely vary across individuals (Bell & Marshall, 2003; Kim et al., 2009b); highly food-involved individuals are usually more likely to be sensation seeking (Zuckerman, 1979); more inclined toward new food experiences than marginally food-involved individuals (Bell & Marshall, 2003; Cohen & Avieli, 2004; Pliner & Hobden, 1979). Empirical results of the current study answered the following research question: Do visitors food involvement characteristics influence their spending patterns at a food festival?

Overall, the relation between the reported expenditures and food involvement levels were extremely complex and not entirely in line with previous studies. The more visitors were involved in food, the less they spent at the CHCF, as significantly negative correlations were found between visitors overall FIS scores and their total and food-related festival spending repectively. Moreover, those who reported high interest in the FIS subset Eating spent significantly less at the festival. These findings generally contradict assumptions or findings of prior researchers (e.g., Eertmans et al., 2005; Juhl & Poulsen, 2000; Olsen, 2001; Weiler et al., 2004) on culinary consumers. For example, Juhl and Poulsen (2000) examined whether
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involvement with fish has significant effects on consumer behavior and found that the frequency of product usage was most heavily influenced by the level of a consumers involvement in fish products. The results that those who have higher FIS scores actually spent less during the CHCF may be explained by another important finding of past food involvement research: individuals who are more highly involved with food are better able to discriminate between foods, in terms of perception and affect (Bell & Marshall, 2003; Cohen & Avieli, 2004; Arvola et al., 1999; Chen, 2007; Pliner & Hobden, 1992; Ritchey et al., 2003; Tuorila et al., 2001). In comparison with having a food experience at restaurants, eating at a festival is usually accompanied by an uncomfortable dining environment, poor table service, or even lower food quality, due to crowd problems or limited service capacities with respect to the manpower and hygiene considerations. Products and services offered at food festivals tend to be simple and geared for mass-appeal and, thus, cannot satisfy the needs of visitors who have enriched food experiences or greater ability to discriminate between foods. The fact that visitors who are highly interested in exotic foods and cooking by themselves spent significantly less at the festival further confirmed the negative relations between individuals food festival consumption and their food involvement levels. In addition, the reason that individuals with higher rating on the FIS item Cooking or barbequing is fun had a significantly positive relation with expenditures could be that these types of visitors enjoyed the cooking process rather than the food itself and were comfortable eating barbeque style food; therefore, they took the visit as a pleasurable experience and were willing to pay more for an experience that combines the curiosity

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of unusual cooking methods with the excitement of consuming festival food/beverages.

5.1.4 Expenditure, Motivation, and Food Involvement Relations

Based on empirical information about the visitors expenditures, motivation scores, and food involvement levels, the study further examined the differences between the high and low food-involved visitors event- and food-related motivations and spending patterns. Paired and independent t-tests were undertaken to answer the last two research questions: Q4. Would individuals who are highly involved with food be more motivated by the food-related factors for attending a food festival and spend more on food or food-related items than individuals who are less involved with food? Q5. Are individuals who have low interest in food more motivated by event-related factors to attend a food festival than those who have high interest in food?

The findings illustrate that respondents with greater food involvement reported significantly higher scores on food-related motivations than event-related motivations but spent significantly less on food and/or beverages than those with lower food involvement. For those who reported less interest in food, no significant differences were found between their event-related and food-related motivations and the results of t-tests verified the results of Tobit regression analysis that they actually spent more on
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food/beverages at the festival, in comparison to those who had high interest in food.

The empirical findings are generally consistent with those of past research (Arvola et al., 1999; Bell & Marshall, 2003; Chen, 2007; Cohen & Avieli, 2004; Kim et al., 2010b; Pliner & Hobden, 1992; Raudenbush & Frank, 1999; Ritchey et al., 2003; Tuorila et al., 1994; Tuorila et al., 2001) in that tourists taking part in food events and festivals usually show high interest in food and food related items. This phenomenon can be explained as that more highly food-involved individuals are more sensation seeking (Zuckerman, 1979) than low food-involved individuals are, and the varying sensory characteristics of food available at the food festival provided a means of increasing pleasure and sensation (Bell & Marshall, 2003). The results, thus, suggest that as an important food-related personality trait, food involvement can be seen as one of numerous factors influencing decisions about food festival participation. The associations between visitors scores of sixteen different motivators, event-related and food-related, and ten individual FIS items were examined in the current study. It was noticed that when making decisions about food festival participation, highly foodinvolved individuals tended to be motivated by the food experiences available at the festival; low food-involved individuals, however, were more likely motivated by a blend of the festivals food-related elements and the festival itself. Therefore, the study provided predictive validity evidence that individuals who are highly involved with food are more motivated by the food-related factors for attending a food festival, but those who have low interest in food are more likely motivated by both the

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event-related and food-related factors.

The results of independent sample tests verified the findings of Tobit regression analysis on the relation between individuals food involvement levels and food festival expenditures: respondents with greater food involvement spent significantly less on food and/or beverages than those with lower food involvement. Indeed, the highly food-involved group spent significantly less than the low food- involved group, both on the food and beverages consumed at the festival and the total. Thus, the findings suggest that the food-related personality traits of food involvement can be predictors and determinants of individuals interest in attending a food festival, but may be irrelevant or negatively related to their consequent expenditures at the festival. For this reason, festival managers and marketers wishing to improve a festivals economic performance should not focus their marketing efforts only on attracting more festival participants.

Although the relations between the visitors festival spending and their demographic and visit traits were beyond the scope of the studys conceptual model, this study extended the independent t-tests to the differences between the high- and low- food involvement visitors to this aspect in order to gain a wider understanding of the food festival market. The results indicated that, statistically, the festivals high and low expenditure groups were significantly different from each other in terms of age, gender, residence, number of past visits, visit group size, visit companions, and length

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of stay. These research findings generally support existing literature related to festival expenditure determinants with respect to the demographic and visit traits (e.g., Boo, et. al., 2007; Chhabra, et. al., 2002; Thrane, 2002; Leones, Colby, & Crandall, 1998; Long & Perdue, 1990; Spotts & Mahoney, 1991). In terms of the influences of group size and group type on the expenditures, the findings are generally consistent with past research findings in that within a tourism context, larger group is associated with lower expenditures than smaller group (Kolyesnikova & Dodd, 2008; Laesser & Crouch, 2006), and the type of reference groups influence visitors consumpsion behaviors (Hsu, Kang, & Lam, 2006; Jenkins & Roger, 1978; Kang & Hsu, 2004; Litvin, Xu, & Kang, 2004). The phenomenon that smaller groups spent more at the festival may be explained by a social psychology concept reciprocity, which means that people feel obligated to make future repayments for what they have received. Past research has found that reciprocity works better in public conditions than in private conditions (Cialdini, 2001; Whatley, Webster, J. M., Smith, R. H., & Rhodes, A., 1999). Therefore, in comparison to those who came to the festival without companion or with a large group, visitors who were in a visit group of two or three people are more likely being heavy spenders, because their spending was more visible to their visit companions and to the stallholders at the festival. These findings may suggest that as a yearly local festival, now in its ninth year, the CHCF needs a substantial improvement to retain customers and draw more repeat visitors and outside visitors.

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5.2 Theoretical Implications

Relating spending patterns to consumers characteristics has long been seen as an effective way to identify the determinants and predictors of visitor expenditures. The present study focuses on food festival visitors and extends previous work by connecting spending patterns to the visitors festival motivations and food-related personality traits. Theoretically, the studys implications are twofold. First, it verifies several theories and conceptual frameworks developed by previous research pertaining to the nature of food festival participants. Second, the study suggests a conceptual model to delineate the determinants of festival expenditure patterns with respects to visitors event-related motivations, food-related motivations, and food involvement levels. As indicated in Chapter One, in-depth analysis based on theoretical understanding and empirical evidence is significant in this area. This study attempts to combine its findings with those from previous work to present a new set of theoretical ideas for future research.

The current study was constructed based on several theories and conceptual frameworks developed by past research, including food symbolism theory (Bessiere, 1998), symbolic consumption at food festivals (Rusher, 2003), unconscious theory (Freud, 1915), needs-hierarchy theory (Maslow, 1943), escape-seeking dichotomy (Dunn & Iso-Ahola, 1991; Iso-Ahola, 1980, 1982; Mannell & Iso-Ahola, 1987), push-pull forces (Dann, 1977, 1981; Crompton, 1979), and the five-phase model of the food lifecycle (Goody, 1982). Bell and Marshalls Food Involvement Scale (FIS)

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was implemented to measure visitors food-related personality traits. As can be seen from the discussion section, the findings of this empirical study generally support relevant assumptions or qualitative findings of prior research on festival visitors and culinary tourists. The results confirmed that known-group socialization is one of the most consistent and recurring motivational factors for attending festivals and events (Crompton & McKay, 1997; Gelder & Robinson, 2009; Li & Petrick, 2006; Nicholson & Pearce, 2001; Thompson & Schofield, 2009); high food-involved individuals are more inclined toward new food experiences than low food-involved individuals (Bell & Marshall, 2003; Cohen & Avieli, 2004; Pliner & Hobden, 1979); individuals who are more highly involved with food are better able to discriminate between foods (Bell & Marshall, 2003; Cohen & Avieli, 2004; Arvola et al., 1999; Chen, 2007; Pliner & Hobden, 1992; Ritchey et al., 2003; Tuorila et al., 2001).

Furthermore, some theories derived from previous research were challenged. The empirical results indicate that individuals overall food involvement levels are negatively correlated with their food festival spending. This finding differed from previous findings on food consumers (Juhl & Poulsen, 2000) in that the frequency of food product usage was most heavily influenced by the level of involvement. In addition, the study found that the food festival visitors were generally motivated by a synergy of food experiences available at the event and the event itself, as respondents reported almost equal overall mean scores for the two motivation categories. This finding partially contradicts Nicholson and Pearces (2001) theory that people go to

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different events for different reasons and that the majority are going to a particular event for what it offers rather than just go to an event in general. Based on empirical evidence and in-depth analysis, the study has established a new conceptual model to illustrate its key findings and thus, theoretically, should contribute to future discussions in this area.

More important, the instruments and methods used in the current study established a foundation to expand and continue work on future theory development and theory testing in food festival research. Due to the scarcity of previous research specifically conducted on food festival visitors, this study explored motivations for attending the festival, with a basic assumption that both event-related and food-related motivations exist, and the conventional use of motivational statements presented in the Likert scale can empirically measure the degrees. An open question was added to the survey to get respondents thoughts about other motivators not included in the provided statements. The results confirmed that existing theories in the areas of festival, culinary, and consumer research can be used complementarily to identify the nature of food festival visitors because of the many areas in which festival and culinary motivators intersect. For example, the motivators Socialization and Culture exist across both event-related and food-related categories. Visitors responses indicated that the relationship between individuals food involvement traits and their motivations to visit a food festival and subsequent spending behavior there is extremely complex; therefore, the research points out the need to understand food

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festival visitors in a holistic sense and to look at the entire experience they sought.

Using the FIS to measure the importance of food in individuals lives is a valid approach in food festival research. The study has confirmed that food involvement can be added as one factor considerably influencing food festival participation (Kim et al., 2010b). Further applications of the FIS are warranted, including to investigate the relation of food involvement with food/beverage choices, and the connection between visitors satisfaction levels and intention to revisit. In addition, the study applied and validated the Tobit model, which is a statistical tool frequently used in consumer research but not commonly used in visitor expenditure studies, to identify the determinants of food festival expenditures. The findings of Tobit regression analysis on the relation between food involvement and festival expenditures were further verified by the results of a series of t-tests, in response to Kim et al.s (2010a, p. 10) assertion that a singular statistical approach may be inferior to multiple ones in gaining a full understanding of the determinants of festival participants expenditures.

Given that conventional wisdom has generally classified festivals as a subset of tourism, the results of this study reinforces the argument (e.g., Crompton & McKay, 1997; Gelder & Robinson, 2009; Petrick & Li, 2006) that festivals should be appropriately considered as leisure rather than tourism offerings; tourism based theories are not sufficient to examine the nature of food festival visitors and, in

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practice, visitors to many festivals, such as the CHCF and the Fiesta San Antonio (Crompton & McKay, 1997), are overwhelmingly local. Therefore, at the academic level, further consideration should be given to greater theorizing about the nature of food festivals as a social phenomenon in their own right, rather than simply as components of tourism.

5.3 Practical Implications

On the practical side, the implications of the research findings revolve around the nature of food festival visitors and, specifically, their patterns of spending, motivations for attending, and food involvement traits. Among the sixteen motivators and ten FIS traits investigated, the positive correlates of festival spending are event-related motivators Novelty and Escape, food-related motivators Sensory appeal and Social, and food involvement interest in Exotic food experiences; the remaining factors are un-correlated or negatively correlated to spending. Differing from other types of festivals, food-themed festivals represent a unique synergy of food, special events, and recreational activities, as fun festival ambiance, joy of gathering together, and excitement about the fresh food are welded together to create the festival experiences. Therefore, festival managers need to take into account the incorporation of atmosphere and product offering to create attractive consumption experiences that can satisfy visitors desires to experience exotic foods, see what the festival looks like, have a change of pace from everyday life, taste food of different

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flavors, and improve their relationship with friends/relatives by eating together at the festival. Festival design should emphasize providing an exceptional frame of time and space that enables visitors to get away from normal routine life and experience excitement and/or relaxation. More importantly, the food experiences at such festivals should be positioned as a way to explore new flavors as well as strengthen social bonds.

In comparison to those who are less interested in foods, visitors who are highly interested with foods are more likely motivated by food-related elements to attend a food festival but spend less during the festival. The possible explanation for this finding is that individuals in the highly food-involved segment might be more critical judges; it is difficult to satisfy their food consumption wishes at a festival site, because products and services offered at food festivals tend to be simple and geared for mass-appeal. The finding that the least important event-related motivator to see what the festival looks like was also the most important positive correlate of the festival expenditures further suggests the irrelevance of the food festival visitors motivations for attending to their willingness to spend. Therefore, planners and operators wishing to target the heavy spenders should consider the food festival market in a holistic sense and look at the entire experience visitors seek. To improve a food festivals popularity, marketing strategies should put more emphasis on the individuals who are highly interested in foods. However, from a purely economic perspective, actively promoting the festival programs and products to the general

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public are more important than focusing only on the highly food-involved population, and integrating advertisements and promotions with product design and position can be an effective way to maximize a festivals economic benefits.

As stated in Chapter One, in an increasingly competitive world of food festival marketing, understanding the visitors characteristics is significant for festival organizers to better identify their target market and, thus, to better plan festival programs and anticipate future trends. The findings of this study contribute to this end by delineating the food festival participants spending behaviors, motivations, food involvement levels, and demographic and visit traits. These findings also suggest some marketing implications and challenges to the festival organizers.

First, the nature of food festival visitors can be understood from both the festival and the culinary perspectives, as food festivals produce an appropriate venue for those interested in food and also those looking to participate in festival activities. The research findings have revealed that the visitors were attracted to the festival by a blend of the food experiences available and the event itself. Although foods are the major attraction of festivals of this type, it is equally important to create a fun festival atmosphere that offers ample opportunity to satisfy the non-food needs, such as the event-related Social and Novelty.

Second, given that food festivals attract a wide range of attendees who are not

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homogeneous in their characteristics, an emphasis on segmentation strategy is essential to attract potential consumers. Organizers and marketers wishing to promote festivals should launch campaigns that appeal to specific target segments, and marketing efforts should be made to ensure that all targeted segments can be effectively reached. For example, for the CHCF organizers who wish to develop the festival into a tourist attraction and to maximize its economic earnings, more advertisements should be put in place to attract the older generation and outside visitors; program design and promotion should highlight group activities and also consider group pricing strategies to make visitors stay longer.

Third, the implications of this research for local food producers, restaurant owners, and venders, who are primary providers of products and services at food festivals, should not be overlooked. Given that more festival attendees does not guarantee more festival revenue, the provision of festival products and services appears to be crucial for increasing visitor spending and, consequently, improving the festivals profits. Understanding who the heavy spenders are and which of the visitors characteristics contributes to explaining more festival spending can lead to more effective marketing strategies and, subsequently, to higher festival earnings.

Moreover, empirical evidence has demonstrated that patterns of expenditures, motivations, food involvement, and demographics vary considerably from festival to festival. There is little evidence yet of generic festival expenditure determinants and

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visitor traits. Therefore, festival planners cannot readily and reliably draw on visitor characteristics observed at other festivals or events, even if these are of a similar nature. To optimize economic benefits for a food festival as well as local businesses, conducing market research on the festival is vital for festival operators to more accurately determine the characteristics of a particular festivals market and, subsequently, to develop justifiable strategies for festival positioning and marketing. As a more general strategy, festival operators need to evaluate the extent to which the festival programs and products are connected to possible target markets.

In short, understanding who the festivals attendees and heavy spenders are and what they want from the festival experience is essential for developing profitable marketing strategies. It appears to be crucial to promote festival activities that can appeal to certain selected market segments, as it is not necessarily appropriate to design a festival that is appealing to all potential visitors. Hence, festival operators should always be conscious of the changing needs of their target market and make the necessary adjustments to their festival programs and products.

5.4 Limitations and Future Research

The current study introduced a new research direction aimed at providing insights on the food festival market. However, due to its exploratory nature, the study has several

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limitations that may have affected the results. As food festival research is still in its infancy, and a great scope for further exploration of the expenditure determinants remains, some of the limitations could serve as guidance for future inquires.

First, generalizing the research findings to other food festival sites is not warranted. The visitor survey of this study was conducted in the setting of a single event, the 9th CHCF, on a limited sized population; thus, the findings may only be generalized to that population and place. Respondents to the survey might not be representative of the broader populations visiting other food festivals. To increase generalization of the results, the study should be replicated at different food festivals and in different geographical areas. A greater number of respondents at different food festivals should be approached. Additional research on future CHCF attendees is also recommended to monitor the changing nature and diversity of this visitor segment.

Second, this study has limitations associated with the measurement tools. For the purposes of this research, Bell and Marshalls (2003) FIS was adopted to measure the visitors food involvement levels. Although the FIS performed reliably in the current study, ways to further develop specific measures of involvement for festival foods/beverages should be explored because the FIS has not been tested in a variety of settings, especially, food festival settings. The more a construct is used in different settings with outcomes consistent with theory, the higher its construct validity (Agresti & Finlay, 1997; Kolyesnikova & Dodd, 2008). Thus, continuous research on

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similar festival sittings is necessary to further validate and develop the FIS for food festival visitors. Various samples from different food festival markets could be used to enhance the reliability and validity of the instrument and strengthen the scales and variables used.

Third, the study is limited by its survey method, which may have caused sampling bias and non-responses bias. As it was not feasible to use a random sampling method at a free admission festival that could be accessed from many directions, a convenience sampling approach was adopted for the visitor survey using six fixed locations of the festival site during fixed time slots. No further tests for non-respondents, including visitors who refused to participate in the survey, were taken in this study. As the study sample was not randomly selected, the representativeness of the sample is not warranted. In addition, the response bias may exist due to the use of recalled expenditure data. A number of researchers (Breen et al., 2001; Faulkner & Raybould, 1995) have noticed that, in the case of food and beverage expenditures at festivals and events, the amounts reported using the recall technique were different from those based on a diary method. They suggest that this was possibly related to peer pressure, social bravado, memory decay, distraction or urgency to get away. Future researchers should consider conducting surveys on gated events, using random sampling methods. To minimize recall bias, selecting an appropriate survey technique for collecting data from festival visitors is crucial for future research in this area. A promising direction for further research is to identify

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which data collection technique would be most accurate for such festivals.

Fourth, the correlations between food festival visitors spending patterns, motivations for attending, and food involvement levels were not thoroughly presented by the conceptual model established in this study. While the model explains the determinations of a number of variables on festival expenditures, based on the results of Tobit regression analysis and t-tests, the significance of each determinant was tested at the p.05 level, which means that factors with slightly larger p values, for example, the FIS item Food presentation (t=-1.97, p=.05), were all excluded from the model. Thus, potential bias may exist and, consequently, influence the models performance. In addition, the visitors spending patterns investigated in the present study were greatly influenced by the logistics of the 9th CHCF. As the festival was admission free, parking areas quite distant, and the audience mostly local, the spending patterns investigated in the current study did not include expenditures on admission, lodging, parking, and transportation, which were common festival expenses investigated in previous festival expenditure research. Furthermore, due to the lack of past research specifically conducted on food festival visitors, there were no ample theories that could be used to explain the correlations between the variables of the present study. Hence, future research needs to be carried out to validate the findings, and each independent variable used in the current study should continue to be investigated and reviewed. Further efforts should also be directed towards developing a more comprehensive model that can explain the relation between

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festival expenditures and additional variables related to motivations and food involvement.

Fifth, this research could not avoid limitations stemming from the festivals physical environment. Occasional rain during the festival period resulted in cancellation of some outdoor activities and caused inconvenience for visitors and surveyors. Consequently, the survey locations and time slots were altered according to the weather, and the number of respondents to the study was not as high as the researcher expected. Poor weather during the festival also led to an uncomfortable dining environment for the visitors and may have negatively impacted their festival consumptions. It is also possible that the visitors responses to the survey fluctuated significantly depending on the time of the day, day of week, lighting conditions, and the surveyors interaction with the respondents. Therefore, the study should be replicated at future CHCFs, and additional analysis should be performed to examine the findings and assumptions drawn from the current research.

Moreover, future research should pay more direct attention to a number of inter-related issues: Do other factors, such as visitors demographic traits or satisfaction with their festival experiences, influence the correlations between festival expenditures and festival motivations and food involvement? How do visitor characteristics differ between different festivals?

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Do individuals culture values influence their attitudes and behaviors related to food festivals? Do other festival motivators or food involvement traits that were ignored in the current study influence visitors food festival consumption? It is also recommended that possible extensions to the current study, such as longitudinal studies of the festival or of food festivals in the region and structured comparisons of same-themed festivals between regions or cross-culturally, should be conducted for in-depth studies on the food festival visitor segment. More statistic tools, such as structural equation modeling (SEM), and qualitative research methods, such as interviews and observation, can be combined with a survey approach to strengthen insights and provide greater probing depths for future research.

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CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSIONS
Food festivals and events are growing in popularity and warrant additional studies of festival visitors. Gaining knowledge of visitors attitudes and behaviors related to food festivals is essential for scholars and professionals from a variety of disciplines affected by festival research to examine the nature of this increasingly expanding festival market and, consequently, to better understand the food festival phenomenon.

This dissertation has focused on three of the most fundamental questions of festival and culinary tourism research: Why do people visit a food festival? Who are the festival attendees? What are the patterns of festival expenditure and can they be predicted? Building on empirical data gathered from the visitor survey, this study correlates the subjective phenomenon - festival motivations and food involvement traits - with the objective phenomena - festival expenditures - and verifies theories and conceptual frameworks established by previous research pertaining to festival visitors and culinary tourists. A new conceptual model is proposed to delineate the determinants of visitors total festival expenditures and food-related expenditures with respect to their event-related and food-related motivations and food involvement levels. The research findings, together with relevant findings from previous research on culinary tourism, festivals and events, and food consumption, present a set of theoretical and practical ideas for future food festival research. In concluding this
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research, it is important to re-emphasize the major research methods used and the key points of the research findings identified.

6.1 Summary of the Research

The primary purpose of this dissertation research was to explore the relationships between festival expenditures, motivations, and food involvement among food festival visitors. Due to the lack of previous research on food festival participants, a survey instrument was designed based upon a comprehensive review of literature in several research areas, such as festival studies and culinary tourism research. The visitor survey was conducted at the 9th China (Hefei) Crawfish Festival (CHCF) in Hefei city, Anhui province, China, to obtain empirical data for the investigation. A total of 691 usable questionnaires were used for analysis. Generally, the research was constructed around six hypotheses and five research questions, which were proposed based on theories and conceptual frameworks developed by past research, including food symbolism (Bessiere, 1998), symbolic consumption at food festivals (Rusher, 2003), unconscious theory (Freud, 1915), needs-hierarchy theory (Maslow, 1943), the escape-seeking dichotomy (Dunn & Iso-Ahola, 1991; Iso-Ahola, 1980, 1982; Mannell & Iso-Ahola, 1987), push-pull forces (Dann, 1977, 1981; and Crompton, 1979), and the five-phase model of the food lifecycle (Goody, 1982). Bell and Marshalls Food Involvement Scale (FIS) was implemented to measure the visitors food-related personality traits.

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Guided by research objectives and questions, descriptive analysis of the visitors focused on their characteristics with respect to demographic and visit traits, spending patterns, festival motivations, and food involvement characteristics. Frequency distributions of respondents age and gender suggest that the festival primarily appealed to the young, and slightly more females than males attended it. Most respondents were first-time visitors who came to the festival with two or three family members, relatives or friends; they tended to stay two to three hours. As could be expected with a food-themed festival, a great proportion of visitors festival expenditures were related to foods, especially, foods and beverages consumed at the festival. In terms of motivations for attending, a comparison of the visitors mean scores on event-related and food-related motivation categories revealed that generally, visitors were attracted to the festival by a synergy of food experiences available at the festival and the event itself. Primarily, respondents perceived the CHCF as an ideal venue for relaxing, known-group socializing, and having food experiences that differ from restaurants and home. With respect to food involvement characteristics, the ranking of the visitors responses to the four FIS subsets and the ten individual FIS items illustrates that the subset Cooking and the item Taste judging scored the highest within their respective category.

The hypothesized associations between the visitors festival expenditures and motivations and food involvement interest were tested by Tobit regression analysis. The results of parameter estimates of the coefficients show no correlations between
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how much respondents spent and their mean motivation scores (overall, event-related, and food-related). However, further analysis on the sixteen individual motivators within the event-related and food-related categories shows that some of them were significantly associated with the total and/or food-related festival expenditures. Within the event-related motivation category, Novelty and Escape were positively related to both the total and food-related expenditures, while Social and Entertainment were negatively related. Among the eight food-specific motivators, Culture and Family were negative correlates of both the total and the food/beverage spending and, respectively, Sensory appeal and Social were positive correlates of the total and food/beverage. Thus, the results of Toibt analysis still support the studys first two hypotheses that visitors total or food-related expenditures at a food festival are associated with their motivations for attending.

The Tobit analysis results also support the studys third and fourth hypotheses, as a significantly negative relation between visitors overall FIS scores and their festival expenditures, both the total and the food-related, were found. In-depth investigations of the ten FIS items indicated that, in particular, the greater visitors interest in Cooking practice and Exotic food experience, the less they spent on the total and the food/beverages. The only food involvement item that had a positive relation with the expenditures is Cooking delight.

The last two research hypotheses, which assumed differences between the highly and low food-involved visitors motivations of festival attendance, were tested by a series
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of t-tests. The results of paired sample testing illustrate that respondents with greater food involvement scored significantly higher on food-related than event-related motivations. The findings, thus, provided strongly empirical supports to the studys fifth hypothesis, that Visitors who score high on the FIS are likely motivated to attend by food-related factors. However, the results also show that visitors who were less interested in food reported no significantly different scores for their event-related and food-related motivations. Hence, the studys last hypothesis, that Visitors who score low on the FIS are likely motivated by event-related factors was thoroughly rejected.

Given the significant differences between the high and low food-involved groups festival motivations, independent sample testing was conducted to further differentiate the two groups food-related expenses. The results were in line with the findings from Tobit regression analysis in that food festival visitors spending on food-related items were negatively correlated to their food involvement levels, because respondents with greater food involvement spent significantly less on food/beverages at the festival than those with lower food involvement. Although the relations between the visitors festival spending and their demographic and visit traits were beyond the scope of the studys conceptual model, to gain a wider understanding of the food festival market, this study extended the investigation to this area. The results of independent sample testing reveal that, statistically, the festivals high and low expenditure groups were significantly different from each other in regard to age, gender, number of past visit, visit group size, visit companions, and length of stay.
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The results of statistical analysis were discussed in relation to the previous research pertaining to culinary tourism, event tourism, and food consumption. To serve as a guiding framework of the discussion, the five research questions were reviewed and answered in order. It is argued that, generally, this empirical study confirmed some findings derived from past research about the characteristics of festival visitors and culinary tourists. While establishing a new conceptual model to delineate the correlations between festival expenditures and motivations and food involvement traits, the study also challenged some existing theories and assumptions by its key findings that (1) individuals overall food involvement levels are negatively correlated with their food festival spending, particularly, the spending on foods and/or beverages; (2) food experiences available at the festival and the event itself are equally important motivations for food festival attendees; and (3) the correlations among visitors festival expenditures and overall festival motivations and overall food involvement do not always coincide with the correlations between the expenditures and individual motivators and individual food involvement traits. In response to these findings, the studys important theoretical and practical implications were subsequently discussed.

The limitations of the study revolved around the findings generalizations about other food festival sites, the possible bias stemming from the survey methods and instruments, and the potential weakness of the conceptual model. It is argued that as food festival research is still in its infancy, and a great scope for further exploration of the expenditure determinants remains, some of the limitations may guide future inquires in this area. Furthermore, specific recommendations for future research were
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proposed in terms of paying more direct attention to a number of inter-related issues stemming from the current research, using a variety of research methods and statistic tools to explore the food festival market, and continuing investigation on the different variables used in this research. It is argued that understanding the determinants and predictors of festival expenditures is essential for running a profitable food festival. Future research endeavors should be directed towards a more comprehensive model that can explain the patterns of visitor spending at various food festivals.

6.2 Concluding Remarks

The present study was undertaken in the context of the rise of food festival attendance in the worlds leisure industry. Through a survey approach and review of literature related to events and festivals, culinary tourism, and food consumption, this study investigated the nature of food festival visitors and, specifically, the correlations among the visitors festival expenditures and their motivations for attending and food involvement levels. Additionally, a conceptual model was developed to demonstrate the determinants of festival spending patterns with respect to the visitors event-related motivations, food-related motivations, and food involvement levels.

In general, the theoretical and methodological significances of the current study encompass three domains. First, a conceptual model was developed, based on the empirical evidence, to illustrate the key determinants of food festival expenditures in
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regard to the event-related and food-related motivations and food involvement. Other important expenditure predictors with respect to the visitors demographic and visit traits were also investigated. At the academic level, the research established links among several research areas in the recreation and tourism field and, thus, contributes to the theoretical structure of culinary festival studies in general, and to the understanding of the nature of food festival visitors in particular. Second, the study employs a Tobit model, which is not a commonly used statistical tool in event and festival research, to identify the correlates of food festival expenses. The results of the Tobit regression analysis in terms of the correlations between festival expenditures and food involvement levels were verified by the t-tests of the similar variables, thus, confirming that the Tobit model is an appropriate statistical tool for conducting visitor expenditure analysis in event and festival research. Moreover, this study explored food festival motivations with a basic assumption that both event-related and food-related motivations exist, and the conventional use of motivational statements presented in the Likert scale can empirically measure the degrees. The results revealed that the current study has developed a comprehensive survey instrument for food festival motivation measurement and, more importantly, established a foundation to expand and continue work on future theory development for culinary festival research.

In addition, the conceptual model developed by the current study provides food festival marketers and managers with a meaningful approach to developing strategies

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or plans for greater festival benefits. In an increasingly competitive world of food festival marketing, gaining knowledge about who the festivals participants and heavy spenders are and what they want from the festival experience is the key to identifying target markets and developing profitable marketing strategies. The conceptual model suggests that the patterns of visitor spending are associated with certain festival motivations and food involvement traits, but the correlations among these variables are extremely complex. Therefore, marketers and managers should take into account the incorporation of festival atmosphere creation and product provision, while emphasizing segmentation strategy to launch effective marketing campaigns to their targeted visitor segments. It is crucial to be aware that attracting more festival visitors may not result in greater festival earnings. Thus, food festival planners and operators wishing to target specific visitor segments should consider the market in a holistic sense and understand their potential visitors within both the community festival and culinary tourism contexts; integrating festival promotions with product positioning is essential to cater to the needs of the target market and to maximize festival economic benefits.

Overall, this study is an exploration of the relationships between festival expenditures, motivations, and food involvement among food festival visitors. Although the findings may not be generalizable to all food festivals, this empirical study represents an initial underpinning, and has provided a framework for understanding food festival visitors and their festival expenditures. This is very fertile ground for the academic

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community and practitioners involved in food festival research, as gaining knowledge of food festival visitors characteristics is the key to understanding the rapidly growing culinary festival market. Future research endeavors should be directed towards a more comprehensive model that can explain the expenditure determinants of food festival visitors; in particular, more research is needed on the possible links between visitors attitudes and behaviors and personality traits before any more definite conclusions about the relationship among these variables can be drawn. It is hoped that additional work will build on this initial effort to provide insights on the culinary festival phenomenon.

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Appendices

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Appendix I: Letter to Executive Manager of the Hefei Crawfish Association

Dear Mr. Chow, My name is Yaduo Hu, and I am a doctoral student in my final stages of study in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, at the University of Waterloo. Under the supervision of Dr. Stephen L. J. Smith, I am conducting research on the determinants of festival visitors expenditure patterns. Specifically, I am interested in the relationships between festival expenditures and motivations and food involvement levels among visitors attending food festivals. For my dissertation research, I would like to conduct an on-site survey of visitors in the 2010 China(Hefei) Crawfish Festival. I was wondering if you would be willing to provide some staff to assist with the distribution and the collection process. My plans are to distribute 200 questionnaires to the visitors each day over a six-day period. In total, 1200 self-report questionnaires need to be distributed and collected as the visitors are exiting the festival areas, during the first 6 days of the festival. As an incentive, each survey respondent will receive a small gift when he/she hand in his/her completed questionnaire to the survey distributors. The cost of the gifts, up to $300 in total, will be covered by my department. I will design a 3-page questionnaire for this survey and ensure that ethical methods of research are carried out. I believe that the results this survey may provide you with worthwhile information about the determinants of visitors expenditure patterns at your festival. The overall statistics from this survey will also be useful to the CHCF to improve the quality of the festivals and to target potential market segments for years to come. I hope you are interested in this research and willing to help. I look forward to hearing from you soon. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Sincerely, Yaduo Hu Ph.D Dissertation Researcher Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G5 Canada Email: y24hu@uwaterloo.ca Tel: 1-519-888-4567 ext. 33894 or 1-519-888-4045; Fax: 1-519-886-2440

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Appendix II: Survey Questionnaire and Information Letter

SURVEY OF YOUR VISIT AT THE 9th HEFEI CRAWFISH FESTIVAL

Department of Recreation & Leisure Studies University of Waterloo

Dear Visitor, You are invited to participate in a survey I am conducting for my PhD project at the University of Waterloo. The project supervisor is Professor Stephen L. J. Smith. This study focuses on examining the relationships between festival expenditure patterns, event motivations, and food involvement levels among visitors attending food festivals. The project will help me learn more about the topic and develop skills in research design, data collection and analysis, and research paper writing. I would appreciate if you would complete the attached brief questionnaire which is expected to take about five minutes of your time. The questions are quite general (for example, your age range, your expenditures during the festival, and your reasons for attending the festival). You may omit any question you prefer not to answer, and you may withdraw from the study at any time. Participation in this project is voluntary and anonymous. Further, all information you provide will be considered confidential. The data collected through this study will be kept for a period of six years in a secure location and then destroyed. There are no known or anticipated risks to participation in this study. If you are interested in participating in this study, please return the completed questionnaire to one of our surveyors. In appreciation for your time, you will receive a bag of crawfish candy from the surveyor. If you have any questions about this study, or would like additional information to assist you in reaching a decision about participation, please feel free to ask the surveyors, or contact the researcher or the project supervisor, at 01-519-888-4567 ext. 84045/ 33894. I would like to assure you that this study has been reviewed and received ethics clearance through the Office of Research Ethics at the University of Waterloo. However, the final decision about participation is yours. Should you have any comments or concerns resulting from your participation in this study, please contact
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this Office at 01-519-888-4567 Ext. 36005 or ssykes@uwaterloo.ca. Thank you in advance for your interest in this project. Yours sincerely, Yaduo Hu Ph.D Candidate, Researcher Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G5, Canada Email: y24hu@uwaterloo.ca Tel: 01-519-8884567 ext. 33894 Fax: 1-519-886-2440

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Directions: Please respond to each question by writing your response in the space provided or by () the box that corresponds with the answer you select.

Section I: Visitor Information

1. What is your gender?

male female

2. What is your age range?

18-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60 years and older 3. Where are you from? Hefei Anhui (outside of Hefei) Outside of Anhui 4. Did you attend the festival by yourself? Yes No
If no, please check the relevant category to describe your party and indicate the number of people, including yourself, for each respective category.

Family________ Friend(s)/relative(s)________ Organized group (school, tour group, work, etc.)________ Others________(Please explain) ___________________
5. Approximately how many hours did you spend at the festival today?

Less than 1 hour 1 hour 2 hours 3 hours 5 hours 6 hours 7 hours 8 hours
Section II: Festival Expenditures

4 hours

For each category listed below, please provide information on your personal expenditures. 1. Food and beverages consumed at the festival: _______ 2. Food and beverage taken away from the festival: _______ 3. Souvenirs, gifts: _______ 4. Entertainment:

_______

5. Other item(s): _______ (Please explain) ___________________

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Section III: Motivations

Please indicate how important the following reasons for you to attend the festival (circle the number or X which best describes your answer). Not at all important Not important Dont know Important Very important

Reasons for attending the festival Event-related reasons

1. To enjoy the festival environment 2. To see what the festival looks like

3. To experience the festival culture of Hefei 4. To reduce tension, anxieties, and frustrations 5. To experience a change of pace from everyday life 6. To increase a sense of family and happiness 7. To get together with friends/relatives 8. To participate in the festival activities (cookery contest, free sampling, parade, etc.) Food-related reasons

1. To celebrate the coming crawfish season 2. To taste crawfish of different flavors 3. To learn new things about crawfish 4. To experience the crawfish culture of Hefei 5. To eat crawfish with family at the festival as a pleasurable experience 6. To improve current relationship with friends/relatives by enjoying crawfish together 7. To enjoy crawfish at the festival as it prompts a different feeling of pleasure than does dining at home or a restaurant 8. To tell friends/relatives about eating crawfish at the festival

Other important reasons:____________________________________________

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Section IV: Food Involvement

Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree that the following descriptions should be applied on you (circle the number which best describes your answer).

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Neutral

Agree

Strongly Agree

Statements

1. Compared with other daily decisions, my food choices are very important. 2. I do most or all of my own food shopping. 3. I like to mix or chop food. 4. I care whether or not a table is nicely set. 5. Cooking or Barbequing is fun. 6. I enjoy cooking for others and myself. 7. When I eat out, I think or talk about how the food tastes. 8. I think a lot about food each day. 9. Talking about what I ate or am going to eat is something I like to do. 10. When I travel, one of the things I anticipate most is eating different food.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!

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Appendix III: Questions Most Frequently Asked by Visitors

Q: Who is conducting this survey? A: Yaduo Hu, a PhD candidate in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies,

University of Waterloo, Canada, is conducting this research for her PhD project. The project supervisor is Professor Stephen L. J. Smith.

Q: What is the purpose of this survey? A: This survey is designed to gain information about the expenditures, motivations,

and food involvement traits of food festival visitors.

Q: What is the title of the research? A: The project is called An Exploration of the Relationships between Festival

Expenditures, Motivations, and Food Involvement among Food Festival Visitors.

Q: What kind of questions are on this survey? A: This survey asks for information related to your festival expenditures, reasons for

attending the festival, and your attitudes toward foods. Your age, gender, length of stay at the festival, and your groups type and size (if someone accompanied you to the festival), will also be asked.

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Q: Are the questions hard? A: No, and there are no right or wrong answers; all you have to do is provide some

basic information about yourself and your travel group (if any), record your festival expenditures, and select the most appropriate answers about why you came to the festival and your attitude toward food by checking some boxes. You are also welcome to write in if you had any other reasons for attending the festival or expenses not listed in the questionnaire.

Q: How long will this take? A: About five minutes.

Q: Does this survey ask any personal information? A: The survey asks some general questions regarding your age, gender, residence,

festival expenditures, reasons for attending the festival, and your food involvement levels. However, you dont have to report your personal information, such as name, address, and phone number. We are primarily interested in your attitudes and opinions about foods and the festival.

Q: Why do you allow only one person in a group to participate in the survey? A: The main purpose of this survey is to understand different expenditure patterns

of festival visitors. Your group/family spent money together during the festival, which means that everyone in your group/family has had the same expenditure patterns.

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Therefore, allowing only one person in a group/family to participate will help the researcher to gain information about more expenditure patterns at the festival.

Q: I attended the 9th CHCF yesterday (or any day except today), should I report my expenditures during that day? A: No, we are interested in your festival expenditures on the current day only.

Q:

If I also paid money for my friend(s) or family member(s) during the

festival, should I report that in the questionnaire? A: No, just report your own expenditures. You can subtract the money you paid for

your friend(s) or family member(s) from your total expenditures to calculate your personal expenditures.

Q:

If my friend(s) or family member(s) bought me something during the

festival, should I write that in the questionnaire? A: Yes, we want to know how much he/she paid for you as well as how much you

spent on yourself.

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Appendix IV: Location of Hefei in China

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Appendix V: Stint Sampling Schedule and Survey Locations

Table 3.1 Stint Sampling Schedule Date Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Surveyor #1 A B C D E F Surveyor #2 B C D E F A Surveyor #3 C D E F A B Surveyor #4 D E F A B C Surveyor #5 E F A B C D Surveyor #6 F A B C D E

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Appendix VI: Instructions for Volunteers Conducting the Survey

What are the important roles of surveyors?

Your roles during the survey are of critical importance because you will be interacting with the festival participants and representing the researcher. Those interacting with the visitors will be the key to encouraging participation in the survey, and result in the prompt return of the questionnaires. Proper interactions with visitors will also increase the validity of the responses.

How to be a qualified surveyor?

It is important that you appear courteous and knowledgeable about the study itself. You must be come across as professional in your demeanor, reflecting the seriousness of the survey, but must also be friendly. You must look like at least of college age, because visitors seem to react better (and take the study more seriously) with adults. Questions regarding the purpose of the survey must be answered directly. It is important to stress that this is a scientific study conducted seriously, and that the opinions of those selected visitors are vital to the success of the study. Assure the potential respondents that they do not have to report their personal information, such as name, address, and phone number for the survey; that they may omit any question they prefer not to answer, and they may withdraw from the study at any time. It is important to let the potential participants know that there are no known or anticipated
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risks to participation in this study.

How to select respondents?

The study population consists of individual adults, couples, groups of adults with friends/relatives, and families with children. Only 18 years or older visitors, who are exiting from the festival, will be included in the sample. The study will exclude any visitors who came to the park (the festival site) but did not attend the festival. When leaving the festival, the selected visitors will be asked to participate in the survey, and, based on your observations, only adults who are assumed capable of making financial decisions at the festival and understanding the research questions will be invited to complete the questionnaires.

Where and when to conduct the survey?

Surveyors will be sent out according to the stint sampling design of the survey. As the festival will last seven days, and the hours will be from 4 pm to midnight every day during the festival period, the survey team, which includes six volunteer surveyors, will conduct the survey from 5 pm to 9 pm, every day during the first six days of the festival. To improve the representativeness of the sample, the survey will be conducted at six fixed locations to survey visitors who exit the festival from six different directions. Six points located at the intersection of the festival site and six different paths (3 main paths and 3 shortcut paths) have been selected as the survey locations. Due to the anticipated differences between the patterns of traffic flow and volume on different paths, you will be assigned different survey locations each day to

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ensure that every surveyor has a fair work load (see the attached Stint Sampling Schedule and the map of the festival site).

How to conduct the survey?

You will stay near assigned survey points to distribute the survey questionnaires. You should approach the visitors to ask if they are willing to complete a short survey, when they are leaving the festival. For couples or group attendees, you are supposed to distribute one questionnaire to the couple/group, and let the group members select one person to respond to the questionnaire. In this way, the researcher will have more chance to understand different expenditure patterns of the visitors. The survey team will distribute 200 questionnaires each day. You will be given, on average, 35 copies of the questionnaires (according to the survey location) to complete per stint. During the survey, you are also responsible to answer the respondents questions about the survey.

What should be done before the survey?

A recruitment script and a list of the most frequently asked questions and answers will be sent to you. In order to avoid giving a poor impression of your competence to visitors, you must read these and become familiar with what to say to visitors and how to answer the visitors questions about the survey, prior to going out into the crowd.

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Appendix VII: Script for Volunteers Conducting the Survey

The following is a guideline for what to say to visitors that you will be approaching at the festival and asking to participate in this survey. You do not have to follow it exactly, but it should be used as a guide until you are comfortable with your task. Once a survey recipient has been identified, walk up to him/her, smile, and introduce yourself. Good evening, my name is ______. I am here today to help conduct a survey of visitors to the crawfish festival. Did you visit the festival? If he/she was a festival visitor, you need to provide background information about the survey. This survey is conducted by the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada. I hope that you have just five minutes right now to help us out. There are no personal questions, and the questionnaire is completed anonymously. We are only interested in your answers about what people spent at the festival and why they came. Are you interested in participating in the survey? If they want to look at the form, show it to them, and assure them that there is no personal information that will identify them. You can also ask the visitor excuse me, are you older than 18? to ensure that the visitor is eligible for this survey.

If the visitor is an eligible respondent and agrees to take part in the survey, say That is great! Before completing your questionnaire, please read the cover letter carefully, as it provides more detailed information about the research. And please let me know if you have any questions about the research, or you want to withdraw from the research at any time. In appreciation for your time, you will receive a bag of crawfish candy when you return the completed questionnaire to me. When they submit the completed questionnaire, let them keep the cover letter of the questionnaire (the information letter) and give them a bag of candy.
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Thank you so much for your help. We really appreciate this. I hope you had a wonderful time at the festival, and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at the phone number or email address in the letter.

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Appendix VIII: Poster

Department of Recreation & Leisure Studies University of Waterloo, Canada
PARTICIPANTS NEEDED FOR RESEARCH IN FOOD FESTIVALS
We are looking for volunteers (18 years and older) to take part in a study of
THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN FESTIVAL EXPENDITURES, MOTIVATIONS, AND FOOD INVOLVEMENT AMONG FOOD FESTIVAL VISITORS

Interested and eligible individuals will be asked to provide information about

Their visit to the festival Motivations for attending the festival Expenditure patterns at the festival Food involvement levels

Time Commitment: 5 minutes Benefits: in appreciation for your time, you will receive a small gift from the surveyor
For more information about this study, please contact the surveyors, or the researcher, Yaduo Hu Email: y24hu@uwaterloo.ca Tel: 01-519-8884567 ext. 33894
* This study has been reviewed by, and received ethics clearance through the Office of Research Ethics, University of Waterloo.

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